Eulegirl

Please be patient with me. My best friend kitty of 20 years passed. My heart is broken.

Envies: I make envies out of any thick and pretty recycled paper I find. I'm currently using a Cycle World magazine I snatched out of the paper recycling. I often use college alum magazines, travel/tourist magazines (one of my bffs works in the tourist office downtown and hooks me up with the out of season ones that are about to end up in the recycling), and random catalogs.

I received a 3 on 2 March 2023. I used to have a bad habit of not always keeping up with deadlines. I have tried to be better about contacting people if something goes wrong. I am using this setback as a time to reset and get back where I need to be. I take comfort that I was a reliable swapper with no 3s for more than a year. But I made a mistake and fell into an old habit. Unfortunately, there isn't a way to remove old bad ratings, so my past transgressions follow me always. Please consider that I did improve from where I was, and I will be the good swapper I know I can be again.

School update (2026): After teaching for 5 years at a school an hour drive away on the evil interstate, I finally got a job closer to home. Now my drive is only 20 minutes and no interstate!! After having an interior classroom with no windows, I now have 2 windows! And they open! I can see the world go by! I probably will not cover all of the walls with postcards like I did before, but will probably curate the collection and put up some of my favorites.

I taught 9th grade for 5 years, and now I will be teaching 10th and 11th grade honors. It was a change from being an English professor, working with college students, to being an English teacher, working with high school students, but I love what I do.

I restarted my blog, Hungry Like the Wolfe. I'm setting a goal of doing 1 post a week! I get behind sometimes, but I'm trying to catch up. Please check it out and follow me. (Ok--I haven't updated it in years, because I don't have the time I used to make all the things and write about it. But there are still a lot of lovely recipes there.)

Please be careful when mailing flat things that might move around in an envie. The mail supervisor for my region is VERY PICKY. If anything bunches up in the envie, and I mean stuff as small as a few teabags or one magnet with a circle or a paperclipped collection of items that could be 3/4" thick, then he will tag it and make me pay the package rate to collect my mail.

In exciting news, I haven't had any postage due mail in more than a month now! Thank you for taping/wrapping things carefully so they don't slide around and become thick. It seems to be working!

Yes, I received a 3 on 23 September 2019. I had an irresponsible streak. It is not a fixable 3, as in I can't go back into the past and send in a timely manner. I do take pictures of all of my swaps. I mark sent when the swap is ready to go to the post office. I do contact people when a swap is going to be late. I learned from my mistakes. Most people are accepting of that, but I also now have a 3 from someone who did not accept my explanation of why a swap is late. I contacted all of my partners as I had the swaps completed but had been carrying them around with me unable to get to the post office because of back to school meetings. I don't know how to fix that, as I was being as responsible as I could.

If a swap does not arrive, please contact me before rating me a 1. I will do all in my power to fix it.

I'm an English teacher. I also enjoy reading, cross stitch, cooking, board games, Magic the gathering. I started playing Dungeons and Dragons lately, and that has been a lot of fun. I sing and ring handbells.

I love cats. I have one cat, Aspect, who has been my best friend for 20 years. She is now older than most of my students!

I also like owls.

The website link will take you to my food blog Hungry Like the Wolfe

I'm a big fan of coffee and tea. I like a wide variety of both. I'm very interested in trying new kinds of tea and coffee! I can use loose leaf and bagged teas. Please don't send chamomile or brown rice teas.

I also really love hats and fascinators. I don't really do ball caps, but I have the look that allows me to wear Derby type hats or English fascinators (basically tiny hats on a headband). I also enjoy tiaras and other fun headpieces. I find a lot of these sorts of things at Halloween at Michael's or at stores like Claire's at the mall. I have been celebrating tiara Tuesday at school, which is actually something that started in the bell world, at a summer event I can no longer attend due to early school starts. But, I CAN wear tiaras and toppers on Tuesday. So, I do. Well, my new school has a no hat/headwear rule, but I have been wearing my tiaras to D&D on Tuesdays.

I really like large mugs for all of my hot beverages. I think delicate little tea cups are cute, but I want to drink more than a tea sample :) Oversized mugs are my favorites.

I like stickers, and I've decided that I will once again join into some sticker swaps. I do get a lot of my stickers from Current which has HUGE sticker sheets, like 9x13, so those might be cut into smaller chunks and/or should count as more than one sheet. But they have gorgeous stickers!

I also have been finding myself drawn to things with the stars and galaxies and suns and moons lately.The sky and the universe are so beautiful!

Baking (especially at midnight) (ok--that was pre-teaching high school when I have to be at school at 8 am.)

cross stitch (I'm working on a huge dragon writer piece right now). I'm working on a second huge project of a piano being played in the woods.

I also enjoy making my own body products like bath bombs and shower cream and shampoo. I love to use my essential oils in all that I do.

If something arrives at my house made of thick enough paper, and that paper has a picture, it's probably going to be turned into an envelope. This includes catalogs, college alumni magazines, grocery magazines with coupons and recipes, calendars, the fronts of magazines, etc.

I'm a mystery shopper, which means I go into stores and ask questions and write about what happens in the encounters.

This results in people asking me weird questions sometimes like how to use a prison credit card at the gas pumps. I also get asked if I would like to join the army.

I have photographed bathroom graffiti so I have picture proof that something isn't supposed to be there.

They say that most people are nostalgic for the music of when they were young adults. I am no exception. I am a little stuck in the 90s and early 00s I love the Lilth Fair set (Tori Amos, Alanis Morrisette, Indigo Girls, etc)

I also listen to a community radio station that plays music you don't normally hear on other radio stations. Carbon Leaf, for example. Or blues or such a wide variety!

In tv, I really miss Firefly!

I'm an English teacher, so you might have guessed that I do love to read. I am usually reading 3 books at a time--one fiction or nonfiction, 1 romance or mystery, and 1 young adult, science fiction, or fantasy. I am also usually listening to an audiobook, which I download from the library app. I've been a member of the Book of the Month Club for several years now--if you want a referral, let me know. I also have Audible, because I love to listen while driving.

I also like to read and write about food. I'm a poet, so I also read and write poetry.

I recently started reading the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. I am addicted!!

Books are always a good choice. No Nicholas Sparks or other super sentimental (translates as I don't want to cry my eyes out when reading) or horror, but sending me books is otherwise a good idea!

I also ask that you don't send me classic literature. As an English teacher, I have access to copious copies of things like "Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, etc." If you read it in high school, please don't send it to me because chances are I already have a copy.

Fuzzy socks

This summer I started watching Avatar the Last Airbender, and I love it! Uncle Iroh is my favorite. Raise a cup in his honor with me!

Things that smell good. Love scented items. Favorite scents include lavender, fall scents, mint, floral, woodsy

purple and orange are favorite colors

olive drab is a color that looks really good on me

trees, though I prefer non-evergreen

I'm addicted to lip balm. I make my own and I also buy lip balm all the time

bath products. I think the best .way to end the day is with a bath and good book. Baths are best with something scented in them--bombs, salts, bubbles, oils

I geek out over stationary and pens and stickers. I really love pens that have big plastic gems at the end and other fun writing instruments. I like colored ink for grading papers.

I LOVE puns and wordplay!

Glitter. I know it gets everywhere, but I still love it!

Recipes that require zucchini (I'm allergic). I am allergic to all kinds of squash, pumpkin, and zucchini. I have learned that pumpkin can usually be switched to sweet potato and turns out yum, but I don't know how to substitute for zucchini

Winnie the Pooh

Please no things that smell like smoke. This seems mostly to be an issue with thrift store swaps, but applies in all cases. I don't deal well with smoke smells, and I can't always wash it out/off. Then I have to throw away a gift, and that makes me sad.

I like a wide variety of postcards. I enjoy the touristy ones, but I really like the non-touristy ones, too. I like pictures of owls, dragons, fantasy, some of the art cards, B/W photography. Things with sparkle and glitter are fine. I enjoy nature, particularly trees. Cats are wonderful on postcards.

Not a big fan of postcards with just a couple of words on a background, like "sweater weather" for fall. Would rather have a scene. That said, I got a postcard that said "Your sparkle has not gone unnoticed" in bright glittery colors, and I loved it. I like bright colors. Sometimes I love the random postcards. I like vintage ones, too, and I can get these at a local store, which is fun.

My kitty, Aspect, is 20. She is slowing down now and lost her sight in January 26. She is very very cuddly and loves for me to hold her. She got diagnosed with hyperthyroidism in January 22, and she now has to take medicine every day. She's doing ok, though. I give her treatos after she has her meds. She is supposed to eat a special diet of food for her kidneys, but she will NOT. I supplement with bonus foods because the most important thing is that she eats food. She eats 2 dinners and helps me with what I eat, especially if there is cheese involved. We both LOVE cheese.

When she was a kitten, she had a bat toy. It was her favorite ever, though it quickly became 2 toys: bat head and bat body. She LOVES bats. And glitter. I tell her all the time that it's ok to love glitter and Bojuka Bog (a magic card--it's ok to have a girly side and a competitive side)

Specti loves treats of most kinds. She is especially fond of gogurt (by that I mean Churro kinds of licky treats).

She does not like hard plastic balls with bells in them or toys shaped like springs. I try to keep her away from too much catnip as she gets angry instead of mellow when she's had too much. She had a cactus once, as she loved to rub against it and use it a comb....until she tried to take it to bed. Then I had to confiscate the cactus. I was also recently reminded that she wants to eat Mardi Gras beads, so please do not send them to either of us. They must remain closed in a box at all times because they are shiny and she wants to eat them.

Like most kitties, she'll love the box as much as if not more than the toy :) And she sends a special thanks to everyone who includes crinkle paper in packages. If you want to follow her, search for Aspect on Twitter, and you can follow her adventures. (She posts in internet cat lingo, so you will find phrases like "forgor box" for suitcase)