Christmas and the next few days

 Christmas this year was a quiet one. As I got ready to write this I realized I didn't take any photos. Again. I felt bad for not taking photos at Thanksgiving. 

The last several Christmas holidays have been different.  At first, I thought this year felt different because of the weather.  The weather has not produced a typical white Christmas the last few years. 

A few days prior to Christmas we had some pretty snow ... 

The new holz hausen with the fresh layer of snow on it. 

Then the temps rose and the fluffy snow is now hard pack and rained on and ready to turn into an ice pack out there.  There has been no sun for a few days.  If there was sun, I know it would be bitter out there.  

Christmas feels different for a whole host of reasons, I've concluded. The biggest one, I think, is that my little man isn't so little anymore. He's a big boy now, and doesn't have the excitement for Christmas that he had three or four years ago. I'm wrapping my mind around this new insight and maybe mourning it a little bit. Back in November I asked him what he'd like for Christmas.  He said he couldn't think of anything. His needs are well-provided for, apparently.  Oh, that reminds me ... the cross stitch I was making for him.  He really liked it.  I got the "One Piece" done in time to give as a gift.  I'll share more about it when I record a flosstube/podcast.  

So, until the grand babies start showing up, Christmas's are going to be quiet, dignified affairs for just the three of us, except when there will be four or more of us because we have extended family celebrating with us.

Actually, Christmas Day I was not feeling my best.  When I started perking up yesterday I realized that I've been fighting off something. I've been feeling blah for a while.  It might have been stress, too.  Work has been kind of crazy the last several weeks. I've got a few things rolling around in my brain, and that doesn't help either. 

Christmas Eve my husband and I made one last trip to town, before the big day and I said "I need to get lights." When my mother-in-law passed away we inherited her Christmas angels. I think the lights worked the first year we had them.  Then they didn't.  It was okay, because where I had them I figured we didn't need the lights. 

Then this year I said "I have to get lights." Only I kept forgetting.  

Anywho, I finally remembered and took the angels apart to verify what bulbs I needed.  They called for bulbs that I was not expecting.  So glad I looked. 

They are beautiful. 

And yes, that's Furby up here, giving her stink eye with her good eye. Ha!

The last few days I've mainly bummed/puttered around the house. Still recovering from whatever.  The crafty bug has not been spending much time with me either.  Last week I finished my Bly cardigan (which will also be shared in my flosstube/podcast) and I only have a pair of vanilla socks on the needles.  I pulled a cross stitch piece out of hibernation and have been working on it, off and on. 

When I pulled "Christmas 2022" by Primrose Cottage out of hibernation it looked like this. 

After spending a few hours with it, it now looks like this:

The light blue on the background is kicking my butt right now.  I can't see the thread when there's just one leg on the cross done.

White Christmas 2022 ornaments

Started: Dec. 2, 2023

Finished: 

Designer/Source: Primrose Cottage stitches

Fabric: 14 count aida opalescent

DMC floss in called for colors

B5200, 310, 321, 435, 562, 722, 728, 761, 818, 898, 954, 3841

Needle Size: 26

Made For: Myself. 

I decided today was sort of a crafty retreat day. ... of sorts. I grabbed all the things that I wanted to get a start on in January.  Maybe. Okay, I kitted up a bunch of things and filled out the project cards for them, and scanned in any paper cross stitch charts so they can be imported in to Pattern Keeper. 

Yup, a mild mess.  This is also a bit of a preview of things I want to share about in my next video. 

One thing in particular I wanted to make sure was ready was the "One Stitch at a Time" cross stitch.

 There is a stitch-along for it in the Across the Pond -- Stitch and Chat group on the book of faces. 

Yeah, I know, I've said in the past that I'm an any kind of -along dropout.  This one looks like I might be able to keep up with it.  It's been broken down to 10 parts for 10 months. Fingers crossed and wish me luck! 

I'm still pondering what my next knitting project should be. 

The other day I saw this online and I thought it was so very sweet. 

That's been the last few days, in a glossed-over nutshell. We still have the wood project going.  Oh, wait.  We finished the first holz hausen. I didn't take a picture of it. (Story of my life!) All three of us worked on it.  Until my back decided it didn't like standing on the snow buildup around the log splitter and I had a fun flare up.  My body reminding me how old I am is not a fun thing. 

I have a grand plan of recording a video next week.  I would have done one today but I really wasn't organized enough to pull together snow now. There's a lot of stuff I wanted to pull together so I felt somewhat organized hobby and craft-wise, for starting the new year. No plans or goals. I made the point of doing that for this year and I think I jinxed myself.  So no more of that! This is reminding me that I should probably go through what I wrote down for 2024 goals, and update that.  

Until next time. ... stay safe! 

Starting to look like winter

 I woke up to snow flurries.  Not a snow storm.  Just enough to cover the ground. 

It's flurried for most of the day. 

I spent most of the day puttering around the house and knitting on my harvest Sweater.  Now that the snow is here to stay I can feel myself switching into more of a hibernation mode. 

Cozy days watching the snow, puttering in the kitchen, watching period dramas on BBC. 

It was a pretty good last-day-of-vacation-before-I-have-to-go-back-to-work day. 

Thanksgiving day was just the three of us.  It was my first thanksgiving where everything came together nicely and was all ready to go at the same time. 

We smoked a turkey in the new smoker. 

It turned out lovely. 

I haven't taken thanksgiving day photos in ages, so there's no photos of the food spread or the family.  We got along and had food, and it was good! 

We didn't do any Black Friday shopping, unless you count going up to the Fleet Farm and buying chicken feed that was on sale.   

I did no shopping for crafts or gardening stuff. 

I know! I'm as surprised as you are.

Thursday or Friday I decided to set up the small tree I purchased last year.  Saturday I finished decorating it and put up a few Christmas things I have. 

My husband said the star garland that I put on the table looked like razor wire.  I have to laugh.  It totally does! "Stay away from the tree!" 

I also put up the angels that belonged to my MIL.  

They look pretty good next to the painting of Furby. 

Adventures in sausage-making

 A week ago, or so, my hubby said to me something along the lines of "Hey, you wanna try making our own venison sticks?" 

"Sure!" I said, "That could be fun!" And we have all the equipment for making venison sticks.  

Venison sticks ... the whole family loves them.  

And, if we make them ourselves we get to control the amount of seasoning and heat in them.  

See, my boys like the venison sticks with more heat in them than I do.  I have a delicate palate and stomach.  So, not as much jalapeno's and peppers in a batch for me. 

Well, we got everything ready for making venison sticks.  The venison was mixed up with seasoning and jalapeños and peppers from our own garden. 

We made a trip up to Fleet Farm to get some casings and we were set. 

Until we discovered our meat grinder didn't have the proper plate for running meat through that doesn't need to be ground. 

Ugh! 

We made calls to all the stores we could think of that might have these plates.  No luck. 

My hubby did some research and we ordered a sausage maker off of Amazon.  Surprise, surprise, it showed up in record time and we made some sausages!  It was a smaller batch, just to get the hang of it.  

Then it was decided we needed a bigger smoker so we could smoke a larger amount of sausages at a time. 

Back to the drawing board. Sort of. 

It was decided to try a propane smoker.  

Someone has been having fun seeing all that the smoker can do. 

The results have been delicious! 

This is a portion of what we have craft (created?) so far. Yum! Gallon-sized bags with pounds and pounds of delicious venison sticks in each one. 

Taking my finger off the pause button

 Today I was half-listening to Chris XrossStitch while I was diligently working my day job.  He is a flosstuber who announced last year that he was taking a break due to a cross country move. He posted his first video after his move back on Aug. 7. He said something about the necessity to check out for a while and hitting pause

Yup, that was me. Without realizing it, I hit the pause button on blogging and most social media things. Sorry. 

Thank you so much to those who reached out to me about Furby.  It means a lot to me that you did. 

I still miss my girl. The house is so much quieter without her and her tv habits.  In fact, I have the tv off a lot now during the daytime. I'm listening to more music, and even started listening to an audio book, at my husbands urging. 

Since July I haven't watched a Fat Quarter Shop video on purpose.  Youtube keeps auto-playing over to those channels.  I unsubbed from both their quilt channel and their flosstube channel.  Youtube doesn't care, and keeps starting those videos when I'm not actively paying attention. So, the Youtube viewing in general has gone down, too. I sometimes wonder if Fat Quarter Shop has noticed a drop in views since Furby's passing. 

Then, when I wasn't looking, Autumn hit my neck of the woods.  One day I looked up and the trees were changing. September went by in a blur.  October seems to be doing the same.  July and August each had a more sedate pace. 

I've been in my own little world the last few months. There have been some changes in the household (obviously). I've got some things I have to be more mindful of, health-wise, and I'm missing my constant little feathered companion.  My husband will probably read this and go "What about me?"  Yes, he is my companion and the love of my life.  He just wasn't with me 24/7 like Furby June was. 

Needless to say, I perk up when it gets close to that time of the day when he's supposed to be home.  How many others can say that after 25-some years?  Eh? But I digress. 

The changing of the season and listening to Chris' comments this morning was the nudge I needed to put virtual pen to paper. 

Apparently I needed a preamble to say "Yes, I'm still here!" 

I have some blog reading to catch up on.  I'm practically non-existent on the Instagram and post sporadically on the book of faces. I've been doing a tiny bit of knitting and crocheting when I'm sitting out in the hunting blind. 

Various projects have been started, paused and completed since I last wrote on blog post.  This all will have to be stretched out a bit so I'm not overwhelmed by a long post. 

In the meantime, I'll share a few photos with you that I took of the changing colors the last few weeks. 

Enjoy. 

If we were having coffee ... Hello June ...

 This type of blog post is for when I have a lot of little things I want to share, or when I feel the need to catch up. 

If we were having coffee ... I'd say ... it's been a while. More than a month.  

And what a month it was.  As what usually happens when I try to do a round up catch-up, I've forgotten half of what I was going to write about. 

Let me start with the biggest thing that happened. 

We got a tractor!

A John Deere!

It was an adventure driving up to get it. It was one of those things where my husband had been keeping an eye on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist for tractors for sale.  Long story cut short: One morning before work he saw this gem listed on Facebook and declared it was *the one.* 

After getting in touch with the owner we headed off to the U-Haul rental place, then back on the road and hours to go to get it.  We drove up through the U.P and back down into Wisconsin.  Bought the tractor and then back up through the U.P and into Wisconsin to get it home.  It made for a long day but so worth it. 

If we were having coffee ... I'd put my mom cap on and do a kid update.  My son got to go to two proms.  One at his school, and one at his girlfriend's school.  They are a cute couple and they had a blast. 

Speaking of the boy ... he's now a high school graduate! We are like a week post-graduation and it still seems surreal. 

If we were having coffee ... I'd share a quick blather that I have started putting the garden in. 

Last weekend my hubby rototilled the garden for me, and we expanded the garden just a bit. 

A fresh, blank slate.  Full of possibilities. I didn't take photos of it post-planting.  That will be rectified soon. 

I had my helpers out there, too.

Furby was helping till the soil and adding fertilizer. 

My hubby was setting up the expanded area, and laying down mulch. 

If we were having coffee ... I'd share about something really cute!

A barred owl has moved into the back twenty. I hear it calling often when I go to tuck the birds in at night. There has even been a few daytime sightings of it.  It's so pretty. The one day it was peeking at us between tree branches. 

One morning last week my hubby was out in the back yard, taking care of some things.  He practically came running back to the house, opened the door and said "you got to come out right now." 

I threw some shoes and a jacket on and followed him. 

What did I see?  A baby!!

It was so freaking cute! It was just sitting there, staring at us, and then it blinked one eye. 

We both wanted to pick it up. We were good and did not.  Mama was in a tree, nearby. She kept calling and vocalizing, so we knew she was keeping an eye out. 

If we were having coffee ... I'd share that crafting and what not has been almost non-existent.  You already knew that, though. Because of my no writing for like month.  Then with the weather being a heifer, there wasn't much for me to write about on the gardening front, either. 

Luckily, my eyesight has improved. It no longer hurts my head when I try to work on my cross stitch.  

So I've been puttering with it, just a bit. 

I'm making very slow progress on this piece.  It's a Month-to-Month by the Stitching with the Housewives.

I've been doing a lot of pondering this last month about my crafting hobbies. Back at the beginning of the year I wrote a list (A LIST!) of all the stuff I wanted to work on this year.  I even wanted to do Maynia again.  Then life things happened.  Boo!  In my head I'm trying to work out how to rectify this so I'm a bit more productive in the second part of the year. We'll see how that goes.

Well, I suppose that is all for this one. 

As my friend Becky would say, "Laters."

Weekend catch up

 Back on Friday I did a thing.  I made a delightfully awkward video of myself showing off my seedlings!

I loaded the video up on Saturday.  If you've viewed it already -- Thank you! 

This entire weekend had mostly nice weather.  Thank goodness! 

I'm looking at things in my Facebook memories over the last several years and see that it's not unusual to have snow on the ground at this time of year.  I think I'm in denial about it.  However, the area I live in usually doesn't have feet and feet of snow on the ground at this time of year.

The snow is starting to recede.  It makes my little heart happy to see patches of shingles on our roof. We've had a few snow flurry storms over the weekend and today. Not enough to stick around. 

Anywho ... enough about the snow, right? 

Saturday I had a lovely and leisurely morning.  In the afternoon we ran to town and took care of errands. 

I was cruising around Menard's and spotted their bags of onion sets, asparagus, and strawberry roots. 

Yup, you guessed it, I came home with a 10 pack of strawberry roots. I'm going to give those a try. 

Sunday I spent the morning up potting seedlings and my tomato plants.  

I used a pair of embroidery scissors for thinning, and a small pampered chef spatula for cutting the soil blocks apart.  You know, the appropriate tools for the job.  (I'm so funny)

Last week my husband picked up a second 4 shelf greenhouse for me and these plants are in there for now, until I can start having stuff outside. 

Sunday afternoon we went to a local feed store and picked up some BABIES! 

I'm mamma to 10 more cornish cross birds and 5 barred rock chicks. 

As you can hear, my Furby June was NOT happy at this invasion of *her* home. 

She caterwauled for most of four hours. 

My husband said Furby was doing her best to let us know what a horrible mistake we made. 

When I was looking at my Facebook Records I saw that *today* is the one-year anniversary of when we brought chicks home last year, and Furby was just as miffed last year. Hilarious!

I moved Furby's tote over by my husband, since she now seems to be a daddy's girl.  She still wasn't happy and continued to vocalize.

In a last ditch effort, my husband put on a song we know Furby likes. 

It did the trick. 

In the evenings this weekend I worked on my blanket. I was mindful of how fast I was crocheting and how long I was working on the blanket.  Sunday I was happily crocheting on it, thinking how I was almost done with the section I was on, and would be done with working a seven double-crochet shell.  

How disappointed I was when I realized I wasn't as far along as I thought.  I still have a whole side to go! 

After I finish this row I will have ten rows left! I haven't read ahead on the pattern so I don't know what the last bit includes. 

This weekend I discovered a new-to-me Youtube channel, and I LOVE it! It's called Sprout. It's all gardening shows. 

I also found Gardener's World on my Britbox subscription. 

Yeah, I might be a wee bit obsessed.  I'm a bit burned out on the few regular Youtube channels I've been watchings, and seeing all these beautiful gardens is hitting the spot!

Sunshine and feeling like a new person

 A couple weeks ago  I was feeling pretty low.  Low energy may be the best way to describe it.  It's officially spring and I have at least three feet of snow on the ground and no end in sight. 

Then one day I woke up,  had a leisurely cup -- or two-- of coffee, and the sun came out and the temperatures gradually started rising. 

How nice it was to feel the sun on my face when I ventured outside to see what that bright orb in the sky was. 

Something about the sun reignited something in me and I felt more energetic and I baked.  I BAKED! I can't remember the last time I made anything in the oven that wasn't protein or pizza. 

Both this past Saturday and Sunday were beautiful days, temperature and sunshine-wise. 

I think it was Sunday we were all outside and soaking in the sunlight.  It could be called taking a solar bath, I suppose.  It was nice to be outside and feeling the heat from the sun. I had Furby on my lap and her feathers were *so* warm and she was leaning on her side, trying to take it all in too. 

That weather was definitely appreciated. 

This weekend was also around nine weeks from my last anticipated frost date.  I set out to plant some seeds. 

My notes were consulted. After making some soil blocks I planted some cabbage and a variety of peppers in some two inch blocks.  I also grabbed three little round seedling cups and over sowed some onion seeds. I think I'm late to the party on those onion seeds.  I've seen online that people have been starting them since January. The back of the packet said 10 weeks, I think.  Over sowing onion seeds is a new thing to me. If they make it - great!  If not, nothing really lost.  

Then I set up two 1020 flats of micro blocks and started planting flowers (mostly) and more Alpine strawberry seeds. 

Why more alpine strawberry seeds?  I decided to purchase a second packet of seeds and toss it in the freezer for several weeks and see if that does anything for the germination rates. 

In these two 1020 flats I have 400 seeds planted.  Isn't that amazing?

Seeds planted are: 

Cilantro (Yes, more.  I'm planning for salsa-making)

Lavender  

Stock (Flower)

Cosmos

Asters (More because the ones I already sowed haven't come up. I'm not giving up on them yet)

Petunias

Impatiens 

Pansys

Violas

Cabbage

Big Red Sweet peppers

Tequila sunrise peppers

Hot lemon peppers

Sweet banana peppers

Habaneros

When I got to the impatiens seeds I decided to dump the contents into a bowl and look around.  I picked up this packet of seeds from the dollar store, and it was full of vermiculite.  The first batch of seeds I "planted" I figure the seeds were so small and that's why they added the vermiculite.  Those seeds have been sitting under the lights for two weeks and nothing has sprouted.  Then I thought maybe all the seeds were at the bottom of the package, and maybe I didn't plant anything at all. 

Looking around in the bowl I discovered the seeds are pelleted. It's pretty obvious what is the seeds, too. 

Can you see those white, rounds bits in the photo? Those are the seeds.  I think ... 

The seeds I planted two weeks ago.  No sign of life. 

This time around I decided to try a couple methods of planting the seeds.  One, in first image of the impatiens, I decided to broadcast sow. 

The second method I pulled out the seeds and dropped on on each microblock.  

One on of our trips to town this weekend I picked up a another packet of impatiens seeds from Walmart, just to see what those seeds look like, and to have as back up in case none of these seeds germinate. 

I put all the trays under the lights when I was done. 

This time I was sure to label them all. 

I have not done much in the way of craftiness this last week, or so. My hands were feeling a bit sore. I thought I'd try working on the crochet blanket and getting one row done a night. That didn't work out.  I have 10 rows to go on it.  I can't wait to be done!

I decided to play around with Youtube a bit, since I couldn't hit the crochet or cross stitch very hard.  A couple videos were put up in the last few days. 

I haven't talked about the chickens in ages.  Our little flock has made it through the winter mostly unscathed.  With the weather gradually getting more sunny I've been letting them out so they can free range a little bit.  They mostly stay around the coop.  With all this snow the don't have much to do or explore.  We are getting between six and eight eggs a day.  

This video shows how much snow we had last week.  We've lost a good amount of snow since then.  Buuuuttttttt .... we are still getting snow! 

Last night we get an inch or two.  The area is supposed to receive up to six more inches of snow between Thursday and Saturday this week.  This news messes with my plans of up potting a few things and maybe setting them out in the greenhouse for part of the day.  When the sun is out the greenhouse is going above 70 degrees Fahrenheit.  I'm toying around with the idea of filling some small containers, or cups, of starting mix and planting some more lettuce and a couple other things just to see what happens.  It's only seeds, right? 

Depending on how things are the rest of this week, one day I will make a video and show off my seedlings in a greenhouse tour, of sorts.  The thing is, I'm keenly aware of all the pauses when I speak and I don't want to go "Uh" and "Umm" to fill in the gaps.  Not to mention, it's been ages since I've made videos of myself chatting away. I'm like a deer in the headlights when I hit the record button. 

However, as I may have said before, I'm really eager to record the growing season this year.  I need to get over myself and just take the videos.  Right? Right. 

I'm still here, I swear!

 Hello!  I'm still here and kicking! 

The latter part of January I was trying to use up vacation time, and a lack of structure got me all out of sorts and discombobulated. 

In addition to that, the weather has been a bit manic. We've had some cold days. More recently the weather has been really nice and sunny.  The other day had a high in the 40s.  One of the local weather people said it's almost unheard of to have weather this warm in February. 

When I was driving that day I came upon a large puddle on one of the county roads. I was so surprised to see it that I had to take a photo. 

I even dragged Miss Furby June outside to enjoy the sun.  She wasn't too happy. 

She's been quieter lately.  I can't tell if she's pouting because I haven't had Kimberly on Youtube as much, or if she's settling into maturity.  She'll be three in a few months.  I don't recall her hatch month.  A regular chicken this would be considered middle age, I suppose.  She's been spoiled and pampered since the predator attack, so who knows how long she'll go.  I recently saw on Instagram about a rooster who was 13 years old.  I know chickens can live up to 18 years of age. This is quite impressive to me. 

There have also been a few milestones in the household.  This week I celebrated 20 years at my work place. My coworkers surprised me with a beautiful bouquet.

 I was wondering why the UPS man was at my door. What a happy surprise. 

The other big milestone was my son's birthday. He made it!  More importantly, *I* made it.  Now we are on the homestretch to gradution. Yes, I'm already be looking forward to May. 

I'm looking forward to May for more than one reason, however.  

This warmish weather has kicked my spring fever in to gear and I've been daydreaming about beautiful spring days, warm summer mornings and seed starting! 

There has been a lot of seed starting and homesteading-type videos back on the youtube.  Furby doesn't know what what to make of it.  Which is why I think she's partly pouting lately, instead of squawking her fool head off. 

I've been working a bit on all my works-in-progress and I've been setting up for a few quilting projects. I haven't got far on those.  I ran out of starch.  I have learned I like a little stiffness to the fabric. 

This morning I bit the bullet and ordered a quarter-inch foot off of Amazon. I hope it fits my Memorycraft 6650.  If not, I'll just return it.

This is the jist of what's been going on in my neck of the woods. 

Merry Christmas 2022

 

Hello, and Merry Christmas. 

It's been bit of a wild and crazy last week and a half, or so. You'll notice I fell off the Holiday Homestead share hashtag sharing I had been doing for 14 days in a row. 

Well, Dec. 15 our power went out, due to the storm moving through the area.  My alarm went off at 5 a.m. and not even 30 seconds later the power went out. Thankfully we have back up and a wood stove, so we were in better shape than a lot of people.  The power came back about 13 hours later.  By then I was too wore out to do any writing.  Then it's been a mix of snow plowing, shoveling, family stuff, work stuff and snow storms and cold. 

Behold ... or something to that effect. My brain is slightly mush right now. Here are photos from that storm.  The snow was so heavy that it was breaking tree branches all day. 

Front yard

My vehicle looks so tiny.

Snow caps on the holtzhausen wood stacks.

Snow blowing around my vehicle.

My son's vehicle.  Can you see the branch that broke and landed *right next* to it? And let's not forget the branch that was so heavy with snow it was touching the snow on top of his car. 

Another photo of the front yard.  I am always in awe of how the trees look when they are covered in snow.  The snow blower kind of bombed the photo by throwing some snow. 

My guy doing what he does - taking care of his family - and plowing because the snow was too heavy to push with the plow. 

Poor birch tree by the fire pit. 

In the back yard. At least one, possibly two, branches that broke from the big pine. 

A tree, or top of a tree (?), that broke by the chicken coop.  It hit the coop. Part of it is still on the roof. 

All the downed branches won't be going anywhere until spring. This storm made a heck of a mess. 

You now have the basic idea of the "fun" we've been having the last week, or so. 

We had our Christmas meal yesterday and opened presents. We all made out like bandits and received wonderful things. 

I usually take a photo of whatever the main dish of the meal is.  This year I managed to snag only a photo of the snack trays I made yesterday morning. 

We had a rib roast and when it was done cooking we were so ready to eat that my hubby immediately started carving it.  The roast was done to perfection. 

Furby was part of the festivities. I didn't get any photos of her.  She got a bit of mashed potatoes and some rib roast tidbits.  The meat she immediately pounced on.  We think she knows choice meat when she smells it.  I had music playing during dinner and I swear she was trying to sing along with one of the "Hallelujah" songs that played.  It was a choir singing the song.  Probably the Vienna Boys Choir. 

Today there's been more snowplowing and snow clearing. For the most part, it's been a restful sort of day.  My hubby took the leftover rib roast and made a pot of soup. We've been snacking on that and a fresh veggie tray I made today.  

Today I've started making lists and thinking about stuff for the new year.  Which, I realize, is something I've done about this time every year for the last several years.  I suppose that is what happens when you have as many hobbies and projects going on as I do.  

Once January starts I get to start thinking about gardening and seed starting! Woohoo! Seed catalogs have been showing up in my mailbox already.