Schiller heirlooms.

I haven't been getting my mail for a couple weeks now. The first couple of weeks I was here I got my bills, some junk mail and a lot of mail for the people who used to live in my apartment. Then it just stopped all of a sudden. No bills, no junk, no nothing.

Last week, I got a knock at my door. Turns out my neighbor had been getting all of my mail. Apparently his girlfriend and I have the same last name. Strange coincidence! He brought over a box addressed to me and this beauty was inside:

My Uncle Terry sent this carving to me. Sidenote: I call him Uncle even though he says he's not my uncle, which is technically true. But second-cousin Terry doesn't sound as good. Plus there are too many people in my family; everyone's an aunt or uncle to me. He and Nancy sent this to me as a house-warming gift. It was a carving that my Granddad gave to his sister, Theresa. Theresa is Uncle Terry's mom, and a pretty awesome lady at that. *I'll be sure to do a pretty extensive post on the Schiller family in July- family reunion time!

After Aunt Theresa passed away, Terry inherited it from his dad. And upon moving to Austin, I inherited it from Uncle Terry! How special is that?!

My Granddad was a wood carver. Not just a wood carver, he was more of an artist. Everyone in my family has dozens upon dozens of his carvings. We have so many that we could probably make a museum. What's really neat about his carvings is that everyone kind of feels like they have a special attachment to at least one of them. They're all pretty special because they all have a story behind them. I have a adorable little raccoon at home in California that I have a special affinity for.

I remember my grandparents visiting us in California (they're Canadian, so trips to California were rare) when I was pretty young- maybe 8 years old? We had an ungodly amount of outdoor cats when I was little. Probably as many as 20 at one point. Every night, we'd feed the cats in our backyard. Their food bowls were right up against a large, floor-to-ceiling window so we'd lay down on the floor inside and watch them through the window, eating their food. Every now and then a giant raccoon braved its way out of the bushes to the food bowls and would scoop out the cat food with its little hands. This was the best. My sisters and I loved when the raccoons would come to the window. While my grandparents were visiting, sure enough a big, ol' raccoon came to the window and we had a fantastic time being nose-to-nose with the big guy.

I finally mustered up enough courage (I was a really shy one when I was little. Adults scared me!) and wrote my Granddad a note, asking him if he'd carve a raccoon for me. I passed it to him and he said he would make me one.

A couple weeks later, I got a pretty raccoon wood carving in the mail. That's my carving.

Now I have another special carving, all to myself. I look forward to the day that I get to pass on my wood carvings to someone special enough to receive them.