Two things yesterday....

I got my "big" (That is - in Sherman) grocery shopping done yesterday. So I have food for exam week, including a couple of different meats (it's very hard to get decent meat here in town; what the Green Spray sells is certainly healthful but it doesn't have enough marbling for my taste. And most places that have pork, have the brined kind, which I'd rather not eat.)

I also stopped at the JoAnn's and got part of the backing for the aqua quilt. (Part, because there wasn't quite the amount needed on the bolt - I will need to piece with a solid color). And the new Simply Knitting (the UK version). These are always a bit of a pig in a poke as they come shrinkwrapped (they do come with "gifts' - this time it was a cable needle and cable needle case). But the cover sweater - a lacy pullover done in a dk weight cotton blend - is a pattern I'd like to make someday.

And they had a short article on studies into the psychological benefits of knitting. I realize such a thing could be hard to measure (in general, psychology experiments seem like they'd be really hard to design, because how do you do them without your human subjects figuring out why - and then the placebo effect comes into play). But anyway, apparently there are studies suggesting that the "bilateral rhythmic movements of knitting" have a calming influence on the person, quite apart from the fact that in a knitting group you can socialize without it necessarily being about the problems you are working through (they contrasted it to group therapy, where the problems are dwelt on). Also, they point out that it gives people a future "something" to think about. (And make the point that gardening is the same - in fact, on my campus, the counselor runs a gardening therapy program - she got a grant to fund it - and it does seem to help the participants)

I've often felt that I would be even less centered than I am if I didn't knit or sew.

***

Also, my Stonewall Kitchens order came today. They make a peach-amaretto jam that is, as I said earlier, the only commercial peach jam that approaches the one my mom used to make (with farmstand peaches, or a couple years we had friends who lived in a house that had an old peach orchard). I had used up the jar I bought in McKinney, and had originally kept telling myself, "You need to go back there partly to get more" but when I realized it would be a while before that trip happened, I looked into mailordering.

Amazon has a lot of their products, but apparently not that one. So I went to the company's website, and it turns out you can order directly from them. So I did.

ETA: And there's just something I find so NICE in coming home at the end of the day and finding something I had ordered waiting for me. Part of it is that it is "good mail" - that is, not a bill, not junk mail. And part of it is, I don't know, it's a feeling akin to going to a restaurant and being able to order food and have it brought to you. To be served for once. I know that sounds kind of entitled and selfish but I spend enough time "serving" other people that it's nice to have the favor returned.

Also, Stonewall Kitchen included a "free gift" - a very small jar of cherry-berry jam. A few places do this. (Penzey's used to. I don't know if they still do, with their newer "Orders over $30 ship free" deal, which is an awfully good deal.) I know part of it is a marketing trick - it may make some people feel obligated to order again ("They gave me something...") or it may make people wonder "What will I get next time I order?" Or it will introduce people to something they really like and want to have more of. (That's how it worked with some of the Penzey's free gifts - it was a blend I might not have thought of trying otherwise)

But yeah, mail order is a big part of my life.

And I got to thinking, yesterday evening, after it came: this is not so unlike what my grandmother talked about. Back in the early days of her marriage (she was married around about 1917), the town they lived in was very small and very rural. (Well, it still pretty much was when I was visiting there as a kid - Rapid River, Michigan, is not large). And she talked about how they used the Sears and Montgomery Wards' catalogs to get so many things - clothes, and I think fabric, and I believe her treadle machine came from the Sears catalog (IIRC, it was  a wedding present from her husband-to-be. Now, some wives might not see that as a good gift but he knew my grandmother's interest. And anyway, what wedding gift is still in existence nearly 100 years later?)

I think she even said they ordered books that way? That Sears or someplace used to sell books by mail order? I know she owned a fair number of books for living in a town with no bookstore and no place that really sold books.

At any rate: mail order was a lifeline for her.

And while I probably order more luxury items (fancy jam, for example) than she ever did, still, in 2013, I find mail order a lifeline - I have ordered books off of Amazon and had them faster than I could have found the time to drive to the bookstore in Sherman. When I first moved here in 1999, it was even more crucial - there was a small Hastings' in Sherman but meh, they carried more CDs and software than books, and the Books A Million was still several years off. And there was no quilt shop north of Van Alstyne or thereabouts. And it felt very, very isolated, especially to me, having come from a town with 2 quilt shops and multiple bookstores and eight or so groceries. And much of the downtown was closed up and shuttered....at least now we have a quilt shop, and several gift stores, and we are due at some point to get some kind of a kitchenwares store (the signage is up and the building looks like it's been renovated....)

It used to be, people tell me, there were more things in town. There was a Ben Franklin's and a T G and Y and even a Penney's. But when the malls opened, and when it got to the point of most people owning cars, people seemed to decide they'd rather go to Sherman or even Dallas. And maybe some of the companies shut down smaller, less-profitable branches, on the justification that "Well, people drive to malls now." And I'm sure the coming of Wal-mart didn't do anything to stop the demise of some stores.

So it's nice to see the downtown revive a little (we still have too many empty storefronts; I wish those had businesses).

But still, there are just some things I can't get here in town. Or even in Sherman. And so I am grateful to have mail order. I may use the Internet to request things, rather than a stamp and an envelope, but in some ways it's really not all that different from my grandmothers' day.