Quiltville Mail Room!

There is a whole lot of this going on these days--- And when there is a whole lot of this going on, there isn’t a whole lot of anything to show you!

But you know what? It has been very nice to sit here “Home Alone” in the dining-room-turned-shipping-department with music on and just sign and fill orders. I am amazed at how far they will go to reach their destinations! Just yesterday I sent books to Brazil, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, England, Germany, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Italy and South Africa! Of course all over the USA too….

I want to go all these places! I want to explore and take pictures and see what life is like there. I don’t want to leave any corners un-turned!

Living in a small-ish cottage type house out in the sticks, there isn’t a lot of room to set up for such a purpose, and cases of books are heavy so I don’t want to be lugging them down to the basement and back up again. I need to be close enough to the front door that I can carry the full bins of bubble envelopes to the car.

I set up a folding table at the edge of the dining room/living room and put my mail tubs there. I have a small one window post office in my town. And I don’t want to over-load them. I print my stamps on Stamps.com to save time standing in line, and to not have a line form behind me. I sort the pre-stamped mail by zipcode in the bins so that when I get the bins to the Post Office they don’t have to take the time to sort it, they just slap a zone paper on the bin and off it goes when the big truck comes to pick it up.

As for the international stuff? That takes some time because of all the carbon copies and the stamping of forms and sticking of said forms on the packages. We have a system! I sort by country, and by what’s in the package ((Either 1, 2 or 3 books etc)) And Jeanette will weigh and print the postage, and I’ll stick it on there. She will stamp the customs forms, and I will tear and separate them into their prospective piles and peel and stick the one sheet to the envelopes. We can go through my mail in record time!

Being at the Post Office is kind of a social thing too! Sherry, The Postmaster, has horses, and I love hearing her stories about their antics and what is going on with them. She also had a “BIG” birthday a few months ago, and came to work in her brand new red corvette. She deserves it! And she looks SO hot in it..LOL! My comment was that it wouldn’t work for hauling my book orders, or my trunk show!

This is how you know you live in a small town:

The other day as we are going through this mail routine of mine, the UPS man comes in and hands Jeanette a package! Of course, it was addressed to her home address, but he knew she worked Wednesdays and brought it to her at the Post Office instead. Isn’t that cool? Gotta love a small town!

So I’ve had a couple quiet evenings at home. And I haven’t sat at a sewing machine in closing in on 3 weeks. How can that be? That will change this weekend. I’m going to sew! My Brother and his wife are having their first baby and I need to get cranking on that baby quilt. That sounds like a Super-Bowl Sunday activity, doesn’t it?

I did get TWO more sections attached to the hexie quilt---Look, the floral border is about 1/2 done now! 3 more to attach. 1 is done, it is my map for piecing the others. 2 has the flowers done, and I’m now attaching them with the white/green hexies. It will take one more trip somewhere to get it done I think…and there will be one more to go, and then I have to figure out what the heck I’m going to do to square this thing off!

Yeah..and you can see that I did NOT unpack the quilt duffels yet! I might get that done today….maybe.

I’ve been having fun with the comments on Yesterday’s post for the Word Play Quilts Give-Away! There is still time to enter. I’m going to draw the winner Saturday ((tomorrow)) so go to Yesterday’s Post and leave your comment!

Time to get back to the Mail Room --- Have a great Friday!