manders2280

Updated 14 November 2023

To open my washi-covered envelopes, tamp the contents to one end of the envelope and, at the other end, snip off a bit of a corner, a little triangle. Insert a letter opener or scissors into the gap; and pull across the edge of the envelope, in the same direction as the washi tape. Here's an album of my washi-covered envelopes and some I received. Scroll slowly so your computer has time to resolve the details in the photos.

In June I went to Israel for ten days, for a friend's wedding, sightseeing, and a side trip to Petra. I recommend Yad Vashem, the Holocaust center in Jerusalem, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. I stayed at a friend's apartment in Caesarea that's a nice walk to Roman ruins and the beach.

In April I visited a friend in Las Vegas. The weather was perfect, in the 80s. We went to Joshua Tree National Park (a UNESCO biosphere reserve) and saw the desert in bloom. Many flowers were quite tiny, from long-dormant seeds waiting for the wet winter, and there were desert dandelions, as prolific there as in our lawn.

In February I went to Southern Africa and took a lot of photos — how could I not? It was one of the best trips ever. I'll clean up my photo album and post a link to it.

My kitchen is my craft room because I love cooking and baking. We are vegetarians, doing our bit for climate change. In Italy I tasted several kinds of savory flan, what I call crustless quiche. Now I have lots of new recipes to try. When I find a recipe in Italian, I open the page in Chrome for a pretty good translation. I make challah every Friday for Shabbat.

I'm swapping naked postcards on Postcrossing and blank postcards on Swap-bot. It makes it easy to organize my incoming mail. A couple of exceptions: I'll continue to participate in the series Sender's Choice -----> with a twist! hosted by @susieq11

I send the blank postcards I receive to family and friends and people on Postcrossing. Please send colorful and cheerful postcards that you'd happily send your family and friends. I appreciate quality over quantity.

No, thank you. Sorry, no hearts.
Bent corners, a sure sign the postcard has been through more than a few swaps. Postcards to color, postcards for Christian holidays and legends. Print on demand postcards like Zazzle postcards. Those cheap sepia 32-pcs Vintage Travel Sights Landscape Retro Postcards. Not childish like Distributed by Michael's Inc. designs. Please, no junk.

Omurice is a wonderful quick dinner. I make it with Trader Joe's Japanese Fried Rice and extra frozen vegetables, thin omelettes we lay over the fried rice, and ketchup. And now it's turning up in kawaii like Ojipan and I love them all.

My favorite kawaii has a face. I love food with faces and anchovies with legs and animals in an unlikely milieu like cat servers at faux Starbucks. I enjoy most characters, especially San-X.

About Japanese kawaii brands: See Pattie's exhaustive list on the KSU group page. Counterfeit sticker flakes are turning up everywhere, from Ali Express and some sellers on Etsy. If it's a Sanrio character and doesn't have a copyright date, it's fake. If it's San-X and largish with thick lines, it's not the real thing. If the price is great, it's probably counterfeit.

No, thanks. Poo and bottoms aren't kawaii to me. 3D stickers from sheets and sticker flakes, especially PVC and puffy. Real photos made cute aren't so cute to me. Unicorns are too sweet for me.

• Dish towels. My spouse is our dishwasher.
• Hair sticks, fancy bobby pins, and scrunchies. I have long grey hair.
• Hand sanitizer spray that's organic or artisanal
• Japanese washi tape. One never has enough washi tape. (No samples please.)
• Paper maps
• Small kitchen gadgets, ones that you've found very useful.

• Jane Austin. Emma is my favorite.
• Gunnie Rose series by Charlaine Harris
• Anne Hillerman's mysteries
• Demon Copperhead and many more by Barbara Kingsolver
• Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey
• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
• Susan Orlean, especially The Library Book
• Murder on the Red River by Marcie Rendon
• The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

And many classics: Anna Karenina, The Call of the Wild, The Grapes of Wrath, Great Expectations, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Lord of the Rings, Middlemarch, Villette, Wide Sargasso Sea

• Christian holidays, etc. I'm Jewish.
• Ephemera, scrapbook paper, die cuts, and the like. I won't use them.
• Extras. I have plenty of kawaii, stickers and washi tape. The extras I send are more of what the swap is for, e.g., an extra postcard or kawaii sticker flakes. Sometimes I write long chatty notes.
• Food. We keep kosher and we are vegetarians. Most flavored teas aren't kosher.
• Glitter, sequins and other tiny metallic or plastic bits
• Pigs.
• Planner items. My iPhone is my calendar, a holdover from my career as a software engineer.
• Plastic, if possible. Reuse those bubble mailers!
• Tobacco smoke residue aka thirdhand smoke. See also thirdhandsmoke.org.
• Unicorns, except the Unicorn Tapestries dating from the late Middle Ages.