Night Owl Cards

I can't keep up, guys. Spring fever must have hit collectors around the country because envelopes containing cards have been flying all over the home nest the last couple of weeks. The card desk ran out of space for incoming envelopes for the first time in a long time, so I tried to scan a bunch of the recent goodies to clear some room -- which is a bit tricky right now because my scanner is at close to floor level and some recent minor surgery has made it difficult to reach upward or downward -- but the envelopes only kept coming to the door! There are at least two more that I need to get to and then two more packages hit my mail box today. Good gosh, I need a staycation to handle all of this. I'm going to make a little space for myself right now by showing off some of the generous items here. I want to start with an envelope from Fuji because a whole bunch of bloggers have posted recently about their envelopes from him and I know you were beginning to think I di...

I was going through some posts on my blog from May of 2010 the other day when the total number of posts written that month caught my eye. I wrote 44 posts that month. This is not a surprise to me. I know I used to post to Night Owl Cards twice a day as often as I could and averaged 40 posts a month. But when my old habits hit me out of the blue like that, I am stunned. What kind of cyborg was I? This May, I will have written 16 posts. This is post 16. That is one more than my record low for posts in a month, which happened twice last year. Some may think I have gotten too "big" for this blog. Life is far busier due to my family health issues. Also there's the matter of writing for Beckett magazine. "Perhaps Mr. Big Shot Night Owl doesn't have the need for this particular writing exercise anymore? Perhaps he can't be bothered with those blog basics: trading, updating want lists, boasting about card acquisitions, etc?" Well, maybe. But I'm g...

It's amazing how many times I remind others in my life with the oft-repeated, terribly cliched mantra, "one step at time"/"one day at a time." Yes, these words have been spoken so many times that they lack meaning. But you cannot remove the truth from them. The best way to keep from getting overwhelmed, preventing your brain from switching into overdrive, that anxiety from hitting panic level, is to pull back and focus on "what's next" and only "what's next." For instance, I found out Thursday evening that the Beckett Vintage publication with my article was out on newsstands and had been delivered to subscribers' homes. I could feel the urge rise within me: FIND A COPY NOW! One step at a time. This isn't the right time. I had a long drive ahead of me on Friday. The desire to hunt for the magazine at every potential stop along the way was strong. Instead, I took a deep breath and calculated the best chance for succes...

It seems that whenever I'm waiting for an interesting card package to arrive in the mail it always appears on a day when I'm too busy with work or some other soul-sapping obligation. In fact, it seems that the card mailing gods purposely wait until I'm very busy for the package to arrive. I've encountered times when I was told I'd receive a package on a certain day -- a day off -- and the package didn't arrive, until the next day -- a day on. Well, card mailing gods be praised, just the opposite happened today. I won a blaster of 2018 Topps from P-Town Tom of Waiting 'Til Net Year and Tom said the post office targeted Tuesday as the time of my prize's arrival. Tuesday was a workday. But no 2018 blaster appeared in the mail. Today was a day off. And guess what showed up?! On a day in which it snowed nonstop so I had to stay inside and not do anything productive! Except open my prize of free new cards! This will probably never happen again. ...