Few things make me happier than getting “real” mail. So, when Neal, at Present & Correct (one of my favorite blogs and shops!), told me to expect something in the post, I got very excited thinking about what it could possibly be. But then Sandy came and went, and we both assumed that the package became a minor casualty of the storm. Not so fast. I went to my mailbox the other day and found a nice big envelope with these splendid French paper rulers inside. I think the pop out French curve is what makes them so marvelous. Thanks!!

I always eat breakfast at home (far less out of virtue and more out of the desire to have coffee in my pyjamas), so I don’t usually skimp on buying decent fruit or healthy homemade bread. Although I recognize that this eating and spending habit is a luxury, the total still couldn’t possibly rival a daily latte at Starbucks. Well, not so fast. Last night, at our fancy local grocer, I knew something was amiss when I paid up for a basket full of food. I was embarrassed at the total, but instead of being responsible and backing out of the purchase, I did a quick tally, amortized out the excess cost over the number of items in the cart, and figured that I should definitely shop more judiciously in the future lest we go broke. I tend to look at price tags on everything (habit picked up from my father!) and find myself returning products to the shelves – although not often enough – if they are too expensive. But I didn’t see an amount on the fruit. I know from experience what the normal price range is, so I blithely added both containers to my array. The tags were scrunched up and hidden, and now I can see why. $11.99 for the strawberries and $7.99 for the blueberries. You read that correctly. The perils of eating fruits and vegetables out of season are legend, but yikes. I am ashamed for so many reasons. The strawberries are a little more than .38¢ a pop and those pretty little blueberries top out at .11¢ each. I had 6 strawberries and 26 blueberries. $5.14 worth of fruit. This doesn’t even begin to take into account the rest of my meal: the piece of toast with almond butter or my coffee with milk. So very very wrong.

In line with an earlier post about barbed wire and its many iterations…here are a couple of sketches of mine (of which a good number of the designs are aggregated from The Early Office Museum) representing just a tiny swath of all the paper clips out there. Did you know that the original Gem paper clip, introduced as early as 1892, and the one most commonly used, was never patented? Ouch. For a little history go here.

Maybe we are. Maybe we’re not. Who can really say for sure. No matter which side of this question you land, it’s still interesting to think that UFO taxonomy is fairly uniform across international borders. I just remembered that one of my classmates, in 3rd grade, swore that he had seen a UFO while away at camp. Even at age 8, I remember feeling derision and scorn for what could only be deemed a complete prevarication. Now, I’m not so certain. Are you? Images and info from here, here, here and here.

After the trees shed their leaves, and before the snow falls, I find the landscape offers up a kind of dolefulness. The one-sided bed is a picture my brother-in-law took of a bedroom in their soon-to-be new home. And the striking (but sad) photo of the starling is from Matt.