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Last night a package of holiday presents from my parents arrived. They had asked me for suggestions for presents for me and Wax back in the autumn somewhere and I sent them a list of various kinds of stuff that we might like or might be useful, some because we couldn't obtain it easily ourselves (like Ghirardelli and Land o'Lakes flavored cocoa mixes - there's no equivalent to that available in Finland that I've been able to find, and it remains a horrible tragedy that Land o'Lakes contains lactose so I can't drink it without upsetting my stomach, because I've never found another source for raspberry, hazelnut, vanilla, and mint cocoa mixes. I can have the Ghirardelli ones, which are mix-with-milk and not mix-with-water, and they have a richer chocolatiness, but they don't come in as many flavors) (and the biggest box of Crayola crayons, which it didn't occur to me to bring when I moved here because they're an inexpensive child's art supply in the US, but which I've come to miss because wax crayons aren't really a thing here, except for sets of like... 12 colors or something like that).
The funny thing is that enough time had passed since I sent them the email of suggestions that, aside from the crayons and the cocoa, I had... pretty much forgotten what was in it? So much so that I nearly bought new silpats and an egg timer myself recently but didn't get around to it, and it's a good thing I didn't. We were delighted with these as we don't know where our elderly and worn-out silpats actually are right now due to the moving situation, and they needed replacement anyway. We were also completely surprised by a tin of mango-flavored loose leaf black tea (long have I searched for it in vain, both online and off!)!
But, best of all... a Silva Bros Construction tshirt for me!!! These are the shirts worn by the construction guys associated with This Old House, and which they were giving away with subscriptions to their streaming service, which, to my eternal heartbreak, can only be purchased in North America. But they actually have an online shop where they are just selling the tshirts as well, and obviously my parents knew about these because I had told them about them, but I actually managed to forget that too (there has been a LOT going on, in my defense...) and was taken by surprise into making some of those teakettle-whistle squealing noises. Several times. Wax got a Ministry of Silly Walks t-shirt, which she was also quite pleased with.
Also, my parents heard years ago that you should put a second address label inside the box, in case of packages being inspected in customs, so they did that, only this year, they put a sheet cut to the size of the entire inside top of the box... and besides our address, my mom made it into a unique work of art with like, a life-size (?) fish print and then a lot of hand-colored water patterns that look a bit batik-y, and it would totally be something you frame and put on the wall except the lower left-hand corner of it has our address written in Sharpie, and across the bottom she's written in ballpoint pen, "Packing peanuts are dissolvable in water". I might frame it anyway... 😂
The funny thing is that enough time had passed since I sent them the email of suggestions that, aside from the crayons and the cocoa, I had... pretty much forgotten what was in it? So much so that I nearly bought new silpats and an egg timer myself recently but didn't get around to it, and it's a good thing I didn't. We were delighted with these as we don't know where our elderly and worn-out silpats actually are right now due to the moving situation, and they needed replacement anyway. We were also completely surprised by a tin of mango-flavored loose leaf black tea (long have I searched for it in vain, both online and off!)!
But, best of all... a Silva Bros Construction tshirt for me!!! These are the shirts worn by the construction guys associated with This Old House, and which they were giving away with subscriptions to their streaming service, which, to my eternal heartbreak, can only be purchased in North America. But they actually have an online shop where they are just selling the tshirts as well, and obviously my parents knew about these because I had told them about them, but I actually managed to forget that too (there has been a LOT going on, in my defense...) and was taken by surprise into making some of those teakettle-whistle squealing noises. Several times. Wax got a Ministry of Silly Walks t-shirt, which she was also quite pleased with.
Also, my parents heard years ago that you should put a second address label inside the box, in case of packages being inspected in customs, so they did that, only this year, they put a sheet cut to the size of the entire inside top of the box... and besides our address, my mom made it into a unique work of art with like, a life-size (?) fish print and then a lot of hand-colored water patterns that look a bit batik-y, and it would totally be something you frame and put on the wall except the lower left-hand corner of it has our address written in Sharpie, and across the bottom she's written in ballpoint pen, "Packing peanuts are dissolvable in water". I might frame it anyway... 😂
