Philately

Do you know what that word means? If not, now you will. It might come in handy some time in a trivia game. I've been a Philatelist since I was in the 8th grade. No, I don't need a 12-step program. A Philatelist is a stamp collector!

Even though I haven't done anything with my stamp collection for many years, I'm still intrigued and notice the commemorative stamps on the mail I get. When I see one that's different or interesting, I tear off the corner of the envelope around the stamp and put it in a little box in my desk drawer. When the little box gets full -- like it did the other day -- I take them out and soak the stamps off the paper and dry them flat and get them ready for mounting.

Since most of my correspondence these days is by e-mail, most of my commemorative stamps are the Christmas issues for the past few years. But in going through what I had put in the box, I was pleasantly surprised to see some really neat ones again.

Of special interest were these three. When I got my 2006 Christmas card from Jodi and Jeremy, I was excited to see that she had a stamp on it that had the kids' picture on it! The U.S. Postal Service has never come up with a commemorative that's been anywhere near as cute as that. Maybe if they had a series with my grand kids' pictures on them, they wouldn't be in financial trouble. But that's just my opinion. That year I also got one from a friend of mine that had her granddaughter's picture on it, too. Too cute! (That's her -- Mary Catherin Dunne -- in the top right corner of this post). Then in 2007, Jodi again put the kids on the envelope.

She didn't send cards this year, so I don't have one for 2008...but it was such fun to see these stamps again. One of these days I'll get my albums out and play around and I will find a very special page for these very special stamps of these very special little people.

What could be more exciting than this for a Philatelist Nanny?