A Postcard A Day - Friday Smiles - Friday 20 December 2024 - It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

 Hello lovey peeps,

Are you ready for Christmas? No, of course not. I'm never ready. Christmas creeps up on me and all of a sudden it's here! Only four days left! Yikes. So much to do.

But the past week has been good, if not busy. On of my smiles this week was this card which I received only a few days ago:

It was sent to me by Anneli from Finland. The artist is Tiina Forstadius.

As far as I can tell (No Wikipedia info) she is Danish and was born in 1949. Some of her artwork is this:

Or this:

The stamp is interesting:

If you look closely you'll see that the stamp is still in its 'surround'. 

It was issued in 2012, so quite a while ago.

What have I been smiling about this week? Last Saturday Dian and I went to Albox, a town about 40 miles away from where we live. She had ordered some meat which we were going to pick up.

There are some big shops and supermarkets that we don't have around where we live. I discovered a Dutch store:

We went inside Action and it was the same as in the Netherlands, same lay-out, same products. I enjoyed that.

Then we were going to have lunch at a particular stall that served Nassi and bami goreng. But we couldn't find it and it was getting late. so we ended up in a German stall. We had currywurst and chips:

I did think of Iris, I must admit. The chips were hand made and fried to order. So now I know what a Currywurst tastes like.

Tuesday I asked one of my neighbours if Im could photograph him for a photo club assignment. He weaves baskets and I had asked him to bring his weaving stuff.

His name is Serafin, seen here with Roneo (AKA Ronnie) the cat.

Ronnie sniffing at the baskets.

Serafin waiting for me to get my gear ready (He did come half an hour earlier than arranged so I wasn't ready).

I think he's doing the strap of the basket. 

Some close-ups:

That's all from me today. Of course I will get you some funnies at the end to giggle over, but for now I will wish you all a very happy Christmas.

Hugs,

Lisca

 

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 17 December 2024 - T for Pioneer Woman and lots of stsmps

 Hello lovely peeps, How are you all?  Things are okeydokey here. I'm getting ready for Christmas and have put up some decorations and a Christmas tree.

But let me show you my postcard. I really like it:

I call her Pioneer Woman. (It's not of course) It's a photo by Barbara Van Cleve from 1987. 

But I started following Ree Drummond (Pioneer Woman)  in 2008 and this is how I imagined her to look like. Of course I know now that she doesn't look like that, but back then she would write about her life and include recipes and I enjoyed her blog. When she got big, I stopped following her. But it was because of her that I started my blog a few years later.

Back to the postcard: It has some writing on the back: "Double Duty: This rancher was out helping gather, move and sort cattle well before dawn. Now she prepares lunch for family and hands."

The card was sent to me by Mark back in August. Mark is a healthcare administrator and lives in Cleveland in a large (Victorian?) house with up to six residents. At the moment of writing his house mates were a Turkish doctor in residence, a Peruvian IT engineer and a proud New Yorker and a grey cat called Smokey. 

The stamps are beautiful. Thanks Mark! There are nine stamps in total! The first one is the World Cup Soccer from 1994.

Brazil was crowned the winner after defeating Italy 3–2 in a penalty shootout at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, near Los Angeles.

The top two stamps feature Daniel Webster. A stamp website writes: This stamp commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Dartmouth College Case.  In 1816, the legislature of New Hampshire changed Dartmouth College’s charter in an attempt to make the institution public.  Daniel Webster argued successfully that the change violated the contract clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The stamp crossways at the bottom features Abraham Lincoln.

The next lot of stamps feature a horse and rider on the top left. It comes from a 1993 whole sheet of horses:

Next to it the New York Stock Exchange. Here you can see it a bit clearer:

 The stamp was issued to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Buttonwood Agreement on May 17, 1792.  A group of brokers and merchants signed an agreement under a buttonwood tree that they would only trade securities with each other and would trade on commission.  This agreement was the basis for the New York Stock Exchange.

Then below that stamp another 29 cent stamp. This time about the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands.

The Postal Service recognized the Northern Mariana Islands and their relationship of forty-five years with the United States with the issuance of a 29-cent commemorative stamp on November 4, 1993, in Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Herb Kane of Captain Cook, Hawaii, designed the stamp.

In case, like me, you don't know where those islands are... here is a. map:

The stamp mentions 'Latte stones'.

 Found an explanation on Reddit: Latte (also latde) is a CHamoru term that refers to stone pillars and cup-shaped capitals or capstones, which represent house supports and are ascribed to the ancient people of the Mariana Islands. In some accounts, they are also referred to as casas de los antiguos (houses of the ancients).

The last stamp is the Chinese Year of the Boar.

Third in the U.S. Lunar New Year stamp series. It features an intricate Chinese paper-cut design by artist, Clarence Lee.  Boar years include 1923, 1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019, and 2031

Phew! That were a lot of stamps! 

So what has been happening here? I have been to a concert in Granada on Saturday night with my friends David and Patricia.

We got to Granada just as it was getting dark. This is outside the Auditorium:

A lovely view over the city.

We went to Händel's Messiah.

It was amazing. The choir consisted of the main choir on the stage and then in addition to that, choirs in the side seats and also the two lateral panels of people in the downstairs (Those people who are stood up with the music in their hands). More than 100 strong!

Here are David and Patricia, and me on the right.

As today is T-Day, and Elizabeth and Bluebeard are hosting the T-Party, I need a drink. That was sorely lacking at the auditorium. There was nowhere for us to have a drink. We had come a long way and were ready for one. Oh well, you can't have everything.

So this is my drink for the T-Party:

Happy T-Day everyone!

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 13 December 2024 - Friday Smiles

 Hello lovely peeps, I hope nobody believes in Friday the 13th being bad. Today is Friday Smiles, so today Friday the 13th is lucky and good!

Of course I have a postcard to show you. This one come to me from Belarus:

It's not a great work of art but a pretty picture of a lady looking out over the lovely view from her room. Looks a bit like it could be the French Riviera or the Italian Amalfi coast. There is no information on the card. It was sent by Irina who lives in Mogilev, a beautiful city on the Dnepr river.

Google writes: Mogilev is a Belarusian city on the Dnieper River. It's known for its architecture, including the House of Soviets, a Stalin-era building. Pedestrian Lenin Street is home to the 18th-century archbishop’s palace and the Square of Stars, with a monument to stargazers and a sundial. 

City Hall has a local history museum and a mechanical trumpet player performing daily. The Cathedral of Three Saints has 7 domes. ― Google

The stamp is interesting:

2019, Year of indigenous languages. (Who knew)

Irina also put a sticker on the card:

I like that one as I love reading. 

I really am enjoying my cat 

He is sleeping beside me on the sofa.

He likes to drink from the tap:

As I don't like him to jump onto the kitchen work surface, I bought one of those little automatic watering things. Something like this:

But my cat hasn't yet figured it out. (I only got it this morning). It's very silent, so he might not have understood that it is running water....

I suppose we are all preparing for Christmas, but for some people Christmas can be a difficult time. This is a little poem I found in the Internet and unfortunately I don't know who wrote it:

Those were my smiles this week. Link with Annie's blog at A Stitch In Time for more smiles. And if course I will find some more internet funnies to add at the end.

Have a lovely weekend,

Hugs,

Lisca