Confetti On A Rainy Day...

I didn't use confetti when I started this little fun trick, but confetti is a perfect substitution for what I used.

I started my career as a secretary, who was of course going to become the greatest actress of our times, just working as secretary until the big part fell in my lap!

Well I ended up liking my job, ended up working with computers and work for a law firm processing all kinds of interesting documents, transcribing court cases, again a lot of interesting work.

When I first started working things were very different, no computers. Though we did have a xerox machine we still used carbon copies. Everything I typed was backed up with a few sheets of carbon paper and what I typed would be repeated on the carbon copies, however many I needed. It was usually two or three. By the way, in case you didn't know, "cc" stands for carbon copy, and is still used today when copying another individual while corresponding, even on our computers with email. "bcc" stands for blind carbon copy, meaning if I get a letter and you get a copy, I won't see the "bcc" on the bottom of my page. Same with our email now. You can send a message to everyone using the "to" option and all who receive it will know who else you sent it to. You can also carbon copy/"cc" others and they will also all know that they have received the same message sent to whoever you send it to. By using "bcc"/blind carbon copy, you can send the same email to hundreds of people, or even just two, but no one will know that it was sent to anyone but themselves. There's a little lesson from an old fashioned secretary!

All secretaries back in the old days used carbon copies, no white out and you couldn't make mistakes on your letters, you had to be totally accurate while typing, otherwise you would have to start all over again. Can you imagine? Being at the end of typing a long letter and making a mistake at the very end! Back to the beginning, very frustrating. I couldn't erase either. My first boss was a perfectionist! He would put the paper up to the light to make sure I didn't erase anything. He was a tough boss but every job after that was easy. He made me a perfectionist as well!

Also back in the day, we would three-hole punch or two-hole punch pages so that they could be stored in file folders or binders with fasteners that fit into the two-hole or three-hole pages. Though most documents are saved on computers now, backed up on CDs and DVDs, there are still many of my bosses that like paper. Like to see their documents in binders or file folders. But now they make paper already three-holed punched. Not sure about the 2-hole punch paper but I'm sure it's out there. In any case I have to buy confetti now for my rainy confetti days.

But back in the day I used to save all the holes that would get saved inside a little compartment inside the puncher. Most people would just dump them into the garbage when the compartment became too full but I saved them. At first I started saving them because I just knew there was something I could do with them, I didn't know what, but just kept saving them.

One rainy day I finally found a use for my hundreds and hundreds of little circles of all different colors. I would put a bunch inside the umbrellas of my co-workers. At that time a full umbrella, like a cane, was more in style. They were stored in corners, hanging on a chair, easy for me to get to and then would be carried outside into the rainy day or night like a cane, keeping my little confetti safely on the bottom.

Imagine leaving the office, coming outside to pouring rain, you just open your umbrella and start running or walking fast. But when my co-workers left the office, they were most times pleasantly surprised by the burst of colored paper falling down on top of them during a dark rainy day. I also learned how to rig greeting cards or get well cards with my colored holes. It worked kind of like a pop up book but instead when you opened the card the confetti would pop out all over you. Once I sent a co-worker a get well card, he lived in a high rise in Manhattan and opened the card I sent while riding back up to his apartment in the elevator. When he opened the card the wind created by the rising elevator caused the confetti to blow all over the elevator. It was raining confetti! Not just on my friend but on the other people riding the elevator as well. They all laughed and it was a get well card, I think my friend felt just a little bit better after his elevator ride. And of course it wasn't long before people I worked with checked their umbrellas before walking out into the rain!

You might want to get to a craft store, buy some bags of confetti and set up the umbrellas in your house and wait for the next rainy day. And the pop-up umbrellas work really well! Confetti added to a greeting card of any kind, even a card saying hi to an old friend will set the mood for what's written inside your card.

And for the bride whose wedding day is rainy, fill her umbrella with white rose petals! She'll smile in the rain!

Here's to the next rainy day! Hope it's filled with confetti or rose petals!