Another Pencil Meet

We did another pencil meet, and it’s turned out to be a lot more fun now that Naomi has her own stationery and opinions. While we talk about stationery all the time here, as a family, we have these pencil meets as a formal event, where we set a time and get snacks and everyone has a chance to gather up whatever supplies they want to talk about, maybe once a year. The impetus was Naomi getting this unicorn multi-pen from her school for Lunar New Year.

It’s thrilling and enlightening to hear children describe the stationery that you know and love: this is my favourite pencil because it wiggles the most; this one has teeth marks on it, I think it was the cat, or was it Naomi? The great mysteries of life.

We take turns talking about a pen or pencil, and what we like about it or what makes it interesting or where we got it from (a customer gave it to us, a special edition, the cup on the shipping table, mama’s drawer, under the couch), and then everyone gets a chance to try it out and ask questions.

In any case, please enjoy some photos. This is it, the whole of everything, family and time together and bubble tea and my favourite pens and pencils and talking about them and sharing them with my favourite people.

Please also enjoy Naomi’s fish pencil case. The kids make jokes about her fish gobbling up the pens, or slapping people in the face with it, it’s all very juvenile. The zipper on it is unfortunate, but hopefully it lasts until the day she’s ready for a real upgrade (probably not). I can’t tell if I should be excited or distressed about the idea of her growing up. It’s coming either way. I’m preparing myself by emotionally attaching myself to the cats.

We are spending our winter staying warm, staying busy, sharpening our pencils, browsing through lovely reading material sent over from some of our distributors. The days seem to be getting longer, the sun is out, the snow is melting into its grey and murky slush, a sure sign of better things to come if there ever was one.

The other day we finally got garlic dipping sauce back with our 2-4-1 pizza. It had been out for what seemed like months. I was so distressed when Jon returned with ranch that I made him call 2-4-1 about this completely unacceptable substitution, and I kid you not they said it was “supply chain issues.” Blockades on bridges or no, garlic dipping sauce is back and spring is on the way.