Welcome to my first attempt at blogging! This year I made a resolution to write and (hopefully) receive 366 letters; one for each day of the year. Well, frankly, I'm failing miserably so I wanted to start this blog to motivate me to keep going. I also have many friends and family who don't understand my obsession to snail mail yet they frequently ask me about it. I thought it would be nice to share my progress on my project, show off some of the postcards/letters/packages I receive, keep everyone updated with life in general and get to know some other random people across the world.  So here goes...

The 366 project:
It's the 171st day of the year so I should have 171 letters received and letters outgoing, right? Wrong. The good thing is that I'm a teacher and I have decided to take this summer "off" from classes and working full-time. I'm out of school now so I have plenty of time to try to catch up.  (I'm hoping blogging will also give me a few creative ideas as I work on lesson plans over the summer. I might be getting a Smart Board in my classroom this year.)  Sadly, my real numbers are:

Received: 12

Sent: 23
    I'm only counting letters in my project. I'm also trying to make sure that the letters I send out are letters of quality, not just something mailed across the world for the sake of adding a number to my tally.  I get my letters from many pen pals that I have both in the United States and abroad. I also sometimes receive letters through the Postcrossing forum. If you've never heard of Postcrossing; it is a site designed to allow people to receive postcards from all over the world. Basically, you send a postcard to someone (and if you're nice  you check their preferences) and then you receive one from another random user. It's a great surprise to see what people send, what they write and where they are from.  Check it out: www.postcrossing.com.
Here is what I sent and received today for mail.

Mail out:

  Some of these postcards are rather strange. I like the Peep one the best. These cards went to Russia (3), China, Finland, The Netherlands (2), Germany, and the United States (specifically Maryland and Missouri).  next time I add postcard images I will link it with the Postcrossing number in case any of my Postcrossing friends stop by!
    I also sent a package with a few small gifts to one of my penpals, Miera, in Malaysia.

Mail in:
     I am part of the Mystery Envelope Round Robin on the Postcrossing forums. For people who aren't usually snail mailers, a round robin is when participate in something that will come to you and then be sent on to other people. In this round robin, 10 items are put in an envelope and then the envelope is mailed to the second person. This person can then take out any items they would like to keep, put in items to replace the ones they've taken and then sends it out to the third person. This particular envelope is traveling between seven people. The last person who gets it will return it to the person who started the envelope.  This envelope was started by verlustangst in Malaysia (she always puts awesome stuff in her swaps!) and continued to The Netherlands. I will send it to Jamaica tomorrow.  Here's the loot!:

 8 postcards from the new Avengers movie...

 Scrapbooking materials for Christmas; a tartan wallet that I will soon be using; a notebook; a vitamin E face mask; Winnie the Pooh origami paper, and a variety of stickers. The butterfly stickers are 3D.

Lastly, there are 2 Moomin tote bags. What is a moomin you ask? Moomin are characters from a series of books and comic strips by Tove Jansson.They are apparently trolls but they look a little like hippos.  My friends from Finland are usually the people who send me Moomins. I once got a sheet of Moomin stickers and used them at school. It was pretty humorous to watch the middle schoolers trying to analyze what a Moomin was. It was a nice opportunity for me to talk to them about having penpals, art and Finland.
     I am keeping the blue Moomin bag (David loved it!), the butterfly stickers and the wallet. I am unsure what I'm going to replace them with.