Good Morning! Good Monday!
Monday is Map Day on this blog. I collect map cards and today I will show you a map of Michigan in the USA.
Michigan is in the north of the United Stated by the great lakes. There must have been many Dutch settlers in Michigan in the past as Patti (who sent me the card) writes: 'Did you know there is a Holland in Michigan? We have wooden shoes, windmills, tulips and traditional Dutch things.' She marked Holland on the map.
Info about Michigan (Wolverine State): It's the 26th state admitted to the Union. Capital - Lansing, Area - 58,216 sq miles, Population - 8,875,083 Motto - peninsulam amoenam circumspice. If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you. Flower - Apple Blossom, Bird - Robin.
I have in fact two cards of Michigan. Here is the second:
The picture of the building is the State Capitol, erected in 1879. It houses the legislative and administrative branches of state government. Visitors are welcome to tour the building located in Lansing.
The stamps on this one are beautiful.
The Purple heart stamp features an American military decoration for members of the Armed Forces wounded or killed in action. It was established in 1782 and re-established in 1932. The figure in the heart is George Washington.
The stamp with the plant features Goldie's Wood Fern (Dryopteris Goldiana), which is a giant fern (can grow up to 4 feet in ideal conditions) found in Northeastern United States.
Beneath that is a stamp that shows Navajo jewelry. This stamp features artist Lou Nolan's painted detail of a Navajo turquoise and silver necklace with sand-cast squash blossoms set with polished blue turquoise nuggets. Nolan based his painting on a photograph by Peter T. Furst. The necklace itself belongs to a private collector and is believed to have been made during the 1940s or 1950s.
The stamp with the clock features an artistic rendering of a dial, or face, of a banjo clock. Constructed of brass and steel, the banjo clock depicted on the stamp has a painted iron dial and a mahogany case crowned by a brass eagle. This elegant time piece was made circa 1805 by Simon Willard (1753-1848) of Roxbury, Massachusets.
This post turned out much longer than I anticipated. But those stamps are so interesting, and I like to find out things.
Have a pleasant Monday, don't work too hard!
See you tomorrow when I will link up with T for Tuesday,
Blessings,
Lisca
Good Morning! Good Sunday!
The card I'm going to show you today arrived a few years ago and I haven't been able to figure out which church it is because I can't read Cyrillic letters.
It's a beautiful sketch of a church in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. I'm going to art classes myself and I wish I could draw like that.
I finally sat down and tried to translate what it says. First I tried with the Russian alphabet, but got stuck. Then I googled Belarussian alphabet and managed to translate it: Church of Simon and Helena.
It is a Roman Catholic church also called the Red Church, possibly because of its colour.
(Photo Wikipedia)
This is the stamp:
The animal on the stamp is the European Pine Marten (Martes martes), which is a carnivorous animal about the size of a domestic cat. They belong to the family of the Mustelids, which also includes mink, otter, badger, wolverine and weasel. Their habitat is wooded areas as they are the only mustelids with retractable claws. This enables them to climb and run on tree branches. They are most active at night.
That's my biology lesson for today! lol!
Have a peaceful Sunday,
CU tomorrow with a map card.
Lisca
Good Morning! Good Saturday!
Today my blog is about books. I love books. I am fascinated by books and ever since I was able to read, I have loved books. But I also love postcards of books...
Here is a card I received from Germany:
They are shelves of folio size 17th and 18th century leather-bound books shelved in Arts End in the old medieval library (Duke Humfrey's Library) at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England. The card was sent to me by Claudia, who had actually visited the Bodleian. She saw where certain scenes from Harry Potter were filmed.
I am a fervent reader. Now that English language books are difficult to get by here in Spain, I have a Kindle (an e-reader) and I download 99p books from Amazon's Daily Deal. I'll show another postcard first before I tell you what I have been reading.
This card also came from Germany.
The stamp was quite modern, without the traditional dented edges:
What did I read last month?
I read Borkmann's Point by Hakan Nesser
A murder mystery. In fact more than one murder: a serial ax killer. Very well put together. I didn't know who was the killer until the very end.
Then I read The Year Of Living Danishly
Its non-fiction. An English journalist moves to Denmark when her husband accepts a job at Lego. It's written in a very humorous way, very entertaining. (We're going to Denmark in January for the first time so I wanted to know a bit more about the country).
Today I finished reading A Meditation on Murder by Robert Thorogood.
I used to enjoy the tv series Death in Paradise and this is a book by the same author, about the same people as in the tv series. A good murder mystery.
I haven't decided what I'm going to read next (tonight). It's a toss-up between Dorothy Sayers: Nine Tailors and Laline Paull's Bees.... I'll let you know next month.
Have a good weekend,
Blessings,
Lisca
Hello peeps!
It's Friday and I am linking up with Annie at a stitch in time for Friday Smiles.
I like postcards with national costumes. I got sent this card from the US:
It is a photo from 1900 and shows a native American girl.
But this is the one I like most:
This is (was) Sarah Winnemucca (1844-91), a native American rights activist. She gained fame as a translator and negotiator for the US army. She traveled extensively and lectured on behalf of her people and later established a school for native American children in Nevada.
This is a card from a series of 'Women who dared'. I like women like that, don't you? This makes me smile!
This is a more modern card, it's more in the 'cutie' league:
She is from Southwest United States. Are you smiling?
And here is my 'funny' for this week. Unfortunately it has the F word in it, which I don't like,(and if you don't either, you can look away now). But otherwise it is quite funny:
Have a smiley Friday,
Blessings,
Lisca
Hi Folks,
It's Wednesday again! Peekaboo! We're going to have a peep at other people's desks to see what they're up to. If you have never done this before, visit Julia to know how this works. It's great fun.
But if you have come to see my desk, you will be disappointed. I'm not at home, but at our weekend home. This is what the desk there looks like:
On the left you see my diary (the large A4 thing) with some postcards that arrived today on top. Then in the middle is the latest FLOW magazine. It is the international version which I subscribe to. Have you heard of Flow?
It's a Dutch magazine for paper lovers. They also do a a once-a-year paper crafting issue with lots of stuff like mini-envelopes, posters, a letter garland, stationery, craft paper, coloring pages, gift wrapping, labels, a flip-up house, stickers, paper dolls, gift bags and more. A real treasure trove! The yearly issue comes out this month and I have mine on order.
The kitten we rescued is doing well. He (yes, she turned out to be a 'he') is getting used to us and is letting us touch him. Since a few days he has even sat on DH's lap:
I'm still trying to sort out my computer. It's old (Windows Vista) and software or accessories that I buy, are no longer compatible. There is nothing wrong with it but I'd like to buy a newer version of PSE, but none of the newer ones work on Vista. So I'm reluctantly looking for a new desk top computer. I'm looking online as there are no stores that sell computers in this backwater. Watch this space....
That's it from me. I'm staying in all day today so I will visit as many as I can. Hopefully all of you. I'm really looking forward to seeing what you are all up to.
Have a good week,
Lisca
Good Morning! Good Tuesday!
Elizabeth often shares her lunch outing with us at T for Tuesday. So I'd like to do that too this week.
Every Tuesday, we eat out at a restaurant called the Venta Vicario.
The staff know we come every week and keep our favorite table free. We usually get there at 2 in the afternoon. We order our wine and we get a free tapa (snack) to go with it. Last week it was Russian Salad:
My first course was salmorejo, a cold soup typical of the south of Spain.
My main course is always grilled lamb as that is expensive to buy in the shops, so we rarely eat it at home. I'm not too keen on chips (fries) so they give me tomatoes instead.
We normally sit in the bar part of the restaurant. There is a dining room of course but we prefer to sit in the front. Behind me is a display cabinet where they sell souvenirs and trinkets. It is also the only place where one can buy black dollies. (am I allowed to say that?)
When my friend Paula came to visit, (she is afro-Caribbean), she bought three for her grand children.
There is also a part where they display the bread they sell:
And being Spain, of course they sell their famous hams:
Those black things on the left are drinking pouches. People drink from them by holding them upside down above their head and squeezing a spurt of water (or wine) into the mouth. Because nobody touches the spout, the pouch can be handed from one to the other and everyone can have a drink.
What did I have for dessert, you may ask...
This is called 'flan de cafe', which is a moussy sort of dessert. All their desserts are home made and this is my favorite.
After we had our coffees, we always get a 'chipito', that is a complimentary small glass of liquor.
The photos I have shared here were taken last Tuesday. I'm already looking forward to going today.
Come and join us on this blog hop with anything drink related to share. Just go to Elizabeth's blog.
That's it from me.
Have a great week all,
Blessings,
Lisca
Good Morning! Good Monday!
Here in Spain it's a Bank Holiday, i.e. a day off. The official festival day was yesterday, the 1st of November (All Saints day) when everybody goes to the cemetery to pay respects to loved ones who have past away. Graves get spruced up, there are flowers everywhere, and the cemetery is the busiest it's been all year. This year the 1st of November fell on a Sunday, so the Spanish have their day off on Monday!
As I am in Spanish mode I want to show you a Spanish map card today. Postcrossing members often ask for map cards, so I do my best to find them. A few weeks ago I went to a Christian Women's Conference on the coast which involved travelling by bus. When I was at the Granada bus station I found a stall that sold postcards and lo and behold they sold map cards! Hurray! I immediately bought five!
This is the region I live in. I live on the far right of the green bit. I have marked it with a little black asterix. The yellow dotted areas are national parks and as you can see we live just outside a national park. It is a beautiful area. Here is another postcard:
I know it's very dry and these are what they call 'badlands' where nothing grows, but I find it stunningly beautiful!
Finally I'd like to show you a new sheet of postage stamps that I bought at the post office this week:
They are about rural architecture, and to be used for mail inside Europe.
That's me done for today.
See you again tomorrow when I link up with T for Tuesday.
Blessings,
Lisca
