Latest cards from August 2019

Netherlands- I can only imagine what seeing this in person would be like. Beautiful. 

 

From Florida, but we have the exact same cards in MA with Cape Cod or some other coastal area written at the bottom. 

Germany- These little guys are on television commercials

 

Germany- Typical things from the North Rhine-Westphalia region of Germany. 

I also received:

1) A card from Suomi, Finland, which is beautiful. The front showed a summer cottage on a lake while the sun was setting. The stamp was a beautiful cloud filled sky reflecting on a clear pond.

2) A hilarious card from Finland showing a comic strip about how Finns are often uncomfortable with small talk. 

3) A card from a homeschooling family in Ireland, but who are originally Dutch.

4) A card of Germany, sent by someone in Italy who seems to be on a US Military base. They said they had never heard of Postcrossing so I have no idea who they are or how they got my address. So, thanks if it was you! Morgan?

5) A German card with a quote and a flower. 

Sorry I don't have pictures of those ones. I'm in a hurry to finish before doing some housework so I just wanted to stop in. 

Today is September 1 and I'm loving the cooler nights!

7/26

Spent the day at Canobie Lake park to celebrate a nephew's birthday with the boys! It was a beautiful, sunny day (which is bad for me, but great for everybody else.) It was a great day of fun before our road trip tomorrow.

 

This was supposed to be an action photo. That mist in the right corner was a splash from a water ride. When I realized I was going to get soaked too, I had to move my phone:

 

There's that nice, wet, sunny day I was talking about. Also, welcome to New Hampshire.

We got drenched on that ride and after that ride. It was fun.

 

Just chilling out. Tim was with us too but he met a friend of his cousin and the two played together for hours. This was a quick walk between lunch and heading back to the water park. 

Incoming mail:

 

A nice map of Netherlands from Anita. 

 

From Donna in Florida.

July 12

Good news, it seems that my writing mojo is back. (This may be bad news if you follow me on Twitter and have gotten my million notifications of sending a Postcrossing card. Sorry). I spent some time yesterday and this morning writing thank you notes and writing some Postcrossing cards. I look forward to tossing them all in the mail today and then attempting to tackle my overwhelming "respond" pile. Thanks to everybody who has been patiently waiting. Postcrossing cards are being sent to: Russia, Germany, Canada, Japan, Finland, USA (California),Portugal, Poland, France, Netherlands, and Romania. 

 

 

  It will be nice to start receiving so many cards back once these ones are registered. I hope to have the maximum amount of cards traveling as I am allowed to. I think I'm up to 19 now. I have a few more to send tomorrow and then I'll be at the maximum.

Cards week of 7/23

  

     This card was from Rotterdam in the Netherlands.  I learned about the Irish singer Glen Hansard. Surprisingly, I knew one of his songs, used in the musical Once. Thanks Martine!

    Look at this gorgeous card! I'd love to visit that cathedral. I wish my church looked like that ;)

 

This card comes from Germany. Drinks of the North. I love all of the cups the drinks are in. Too bad I don't drink alcohol, otherwise I'd try them all :)

     Well, I'm going to post this now, even though it's only Thursday because we will be away for a few days. Hopefully,I will have a ton in my mailbox waiting for me when we get home. Tim is competing for the state title in baseball. Super exciting!!

Finally a great mail day

    Today was the first day back to school after February school vacation. Although it was a great day of teaching and the students were really good considering they have had a week off, I ended my day with a rehearsal of my "elite" group. Unfortunately, we were missing a bunch of them and 2 of the boys were lacking any self-control. I ended my day feeling frustrated and disgruntled (and curious about what I should do about the 2 boys. It's hard to balance caring and merciful with having clear expectations after giving ample opportunities to fix behavior.) What I'm getting at is that it was delightful to trudge out to my mailbox expecting at least 1 piece of mail and finding 4 unexpected pieces. I also got a magazine and 2 (really inexpensive bills.)  Sorry for the low quality, we're having issues with our camera.

   The postcard on the left is a Postcrossing card from Iowa, which I visited for the first time this summer. It is from a woman named Nancy.  The card shows a lithograph by the artist Grant Wood (1891-1942)


     The postcard on the right was a surprise from Saskia in The Netherlands. She belongs to Penpalling & Letters with me. We could sign up for a New Years event where you sent at least 1 person wishes for a happy new year. You may or may not get any cards back. I was really appreciative to receive this. It also reminded me that I need to clean my apartment. I wish I looked that happy when I tidy up!
      The 2 envelopes under the postcards I received from Lettermo participants. These are both introduction letters. I have had a few people on Interpals ask to write lately so I was expecting a few intro letters there but I wasn't expecting any from Lettermo. These women are from Texas and Virginia. I am looking forward to writing back. They both sounded really interesting and kind. Marilyn also sent me the most adorable bookmark that she made. Thanks!

      All this good mail has inspired me to go write a few letters tonight and get creative with them. I also have to bake a cake for a small party I'm having tomorrow at school.

Postcards/366 update

    It has been a while since I've updated on my mail- mostly because I've been horrible about it. Now that it's summer vacation for me, I will be a lot better about it. So, here's today's mail as well as an updated on the 366 Project.

Outgoing- Postcrossing cards to the Czech Republic and The Netherlands

 Incoming: This card is from Tatiana in Russia but it is a card of St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague. It is a UNESCO site.

The 366 Project:

Sent: 191
Received: 82

  Honestly, I was a little that I would be really behind my "sent" goal since I wasn't writing a lot when my schedule was insane.Today is day 178 of the year, so I'm still on track (ahead a little even!). I'm sadly behind on the incoming mail. I will be happy this year if I can keep the challenge of sending out some postal kindness since I have full control over that. With that being said, feel free to send me some good stuff through the mail too if you haven't. (If you're waiting for a letter from me, wait until I respond. I'm attacking my pile starting today and plan to write at least 1 a day so it should be soon.)

ICAD 2015

    It's that time again! I'm taking part in Daisy Yellow's Index-Card-a-Day challenge. The basic just is to create something on a 3x5 card following a prompt (if you'd like.) It was a great way to foster my creativity and develop some art skills. I totally missed that the first week should be done with ink, pens and markers so mine is done using my gelli plate and acrylics. I had fun. I might go doodle again in a minute and make another card. So, here's ICAD 1/61 You can't see the colors well here but it was basically red, yellow and blue. Where the paint overlapped, the colors blended.

    In terms of mail, I've gotten quite a few fun things this past week.
Postcrossing card from Germany. This was the first card she has sent.

 From England. Another mailbox card. I love them!

 GoodReads win. Looks like a fun read

 Postcrossing from China

 2 letters- One from Chandini in South Africa and the other from Monique in The Netherlands.

A cool little art piece from Gretchen! 

    Are any other friends participating in ICAD2015? 

Homemade card and incoming 4/22

I made this card for a Postcrossing member who likes homemade cards. What do you think? I used my gelli plate on a piece of old sheet music to create the background. Then I stenciled the bird and flowers on. The purple print is from the bottom of a pair of dress shoes I have. This is headed to Michigan

 Incoming:

     I received a letter from LR in Georgia. (LR If you're reading this, you sent me a few challenging questions I look forward to thinking through!) The cute pirates are from Anne in The Netherlands. She sent some cool music stamps too! I had never seen the stamps before. I didn't know the Vengaboys were Dutch.  The boys thought the card was cute too. 

Incoming mail 11/12

Incoming!!!

    Finally, a great mail day. I have 2 things that are going out in the mail:
1. letter to my latest Chemo Angel
2. This card of the Rebecca Nurse Memorial, which is about 2 miles from my house. This card is headed to Australia

    When I got home from school, preparing to finish my 408 grades that were due today, I headed to my mailbox expecting a gift I had bought for one of my Chemo Buddies. Not there. (Yet- it came later today). Instead I found these 2 great cards. This one is from California:

    Then I got this one from Germany:

    Here is the best part about this card. Here is my address on the card:

Somehow this still got from Germany to me in 8 days! One of my friends at the post office once laughed at me when I mailed something to the Ukraine and it had come back in the mail to me even though there was no return address. He told me I'm the only one around here who gets "weird, exotic foreign mail" and explained that anything that fits in that category but is unexplained will most likely end up at my house. Then he added that I'm also probably on a "no fly" list somewhere because of all the weird things that  people mail to me.. lol.

     I got the package for my ChemoBuddy a little later. I got him this book, which I just read a few weeks ago. The author, Levi Stack, sent me a copy of the e-book (which may be free on Amazon right now), and then a copy of the next book in the series too. He seems like a really nice guy and I enjoyed the books. So, I figured I'd buy a copy of the 1st book and send it to my friend.

    Imagine my surprise when I walked into our hallway to see this waiting for me:

Ooh.. mysterious. Once I saw the return address I was super excited. Yes, I'm a nerd. It's from Stamps Teach. Check out their website.  (Sarah, I think this would be great for your classroom!)  I got this to use at home with my kids but I will definitely pass on the information to the teachers my kids have.  Look at all the interesting things inside!

Educational activities:

 Commemorative 1st day issues

 Magnifying sheet

 Postcards!

 Pamphlets

 Stamp albums

 Coloring books

 More resources

 More Envelopes

 More educator's guides

 Worksheets

 Letter, review cards, etc

 Bag of stamps with this hilarious note on it. Good to know if you're using in a classroom

 Stamps! They are so interesting. Just glancing through I saw some from: US, Canada, Chad, Trinidad and Tobago, Iraq, Uganda, Ireland, Netherlands, France, Poland, Pakistan, South Africa, New Zealand, etc. There are many African countries that I have never seen stamps from. I can't wait to explore these more.