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 8/6

 

This card is from Jenny in NY. Ironically, she had just been talking about my town with a co-worker when she was assigned to send me the Postcrossing card!

 

 John and Annie from Hong Kong sent me this card of the Asian instrument, guqin. They also send some great stamps showing traditional Chinese wedding attire and some national scenery.

 

Postcard  from Finland about a fairy tale that explains that gnomes are nice and not scary.

 

Schloss Weilburg an der Lahn. This card is from Poland. I would love to see what the inside of this building looks like!

 

Another palace, this time from Munich, Germany

     Alena from Russia introduced me to the musician Pelageya. Russian women have such a dark, low sound. Anyone know why that is? I like it.

      Look at this intense guy! This card is from Belgium.

This is from my postcard pal, Sheri. It was 114 degrees there when she wrote this card. I could not survive living in 114 degree weather!

     Today is also received an incredibly encouraging letter from a woman in India whom I've known online. God's timing is amazing and her letter was like fresh air to my soul. Arielle, I'm super grateful!

Another cool owl card sent from Tereza in Czech Republic.

Rest of cards from 7/23 and week of 7/30

This card is from Joan in Taiwan. She is a university student studying animal science. She also played violin for 10 years.

Nessa in MD chatted with me about music. I love this quote.

Tarva in Finland introduced me to the band Nightwish. (Nessa, if you are reading- it might be "harder" than your normal music, but you might like them! Holy cow, check out their Phantom of the Opera!!!) I really enjoyed their songs.

Aliessia sends a Pixar card for the boys. I read a book called Culture Code that mentioned how Pixar works to improve their movies. I highly recommend it.

Then I also received a from Sheri in Az. (Sorry, I already filed this card away when I responded.) I was assigned to send her a card through Postcrossing and we decided to be postcard pals. This plant grows in her yard. The flowers of this plant only bloom once in the plant's lifetime of about 100 years. That's pretty cool. They started to bloom on her plant last month.

This card is from Thomas in Germany. It is a historic place called Hartenstein. I commented to him that it doesn't look too different from some of the houses in the US.

Dorothy in New York sent me this gorgeous card of the Williamstown Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge. She loves walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, but I think I would be nervous. I know there's a section for walkers but it's a little too high up for me :)

This card from Milena in Poland shows some Polish symbols. The national costume and sausages were the ones I associated most with Poland. I didn't associate lavender with Poland before. I love learning new things.

This card is from Shawna who just moved from Minnesota to South Carolina. This reminds me a lot of the river we stayed by in Wisconsin, but the postcard shows the St. Croix River and we were on the Wisconsin River at the Dells.

Ha ha... I had never seen these "pressed fairies" before. Lady Cottington claimed to take photos of fairies. This is from "Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book" by Terry Jones.  Thanks Cheryl.

Ludmila from Belarus sends this other fairy. Funny to get 2 fairies in a row. 

Can you tell I've been sending a lot of mail lately? It's great to see my mailbox so well-fed.

Cards during vacation

   I received  a lot of nice cards during the time I was on vacation. I plan to blog about my trip next week but I figured I'd do a quick mail catch-up. It was delightful to arrive home to such beautiful cards and kind words. Thank you all! Many of these came from my Penpalling & Letters postcard swap. The others are from family and from Postcrossing.

 P & L from Zsuzsanna in Costa Rica. I also loved the cute post-it notes. I use them a lot. I will probably bring these to school since they are so cute.

 Matt and I just celebrated out 17th wedding anniversary. This was a card our church sent us, which I thought was pretty cool. The text is a Bible verse that says "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13

 P&L from Sanja. She is also a teacher. She used an Israel-Deutschland stamp that I have not seen yet.

 An anniversary card from my parents. They also included a postcard and:

 One of my original wedding invitations. Cute touch.

 Check out this cool first day issue from Australia. Thanks Emma. My son David really liked this one too.

 This is from a Postcrosser in Oregon. She was so kind that she sent this card,

 this card and a small envelope of stickers and stamps for the boys. Thanks so much for your generosity.

 Anniversary card from Nana. I totally blame my Nana for my addiction to postal mail.

 P& L card from Fabienne. I love the little sailboats on this card

 From Irek from Poland. I love that I got 2 castle cards with the reflections. Beautiful.

 P&L- From Marie in Canada. This card is so cute.

From  Sam in England.  I wish I lived in a place like this. lol.

From Oksana in Russia. Anyone know what the text says? Cool card, a lot to look at.

Speaking of cool cards, Timmy wanted to send a postcrossing card and the user mentioned that they like strange cards and homemade cards. Timmy decided to make one for her. This is what he came up with. I love it. It is a bird from something Dr. Seuss would've made.

David also got in on the postcard frenzy during vacation. He's writing a friend a postcard- while getting distracted by the television.

Quick mail catchup

     I have not sent any good mail lately. I have been buried in work for a few weeks. This is my last insanely crazy week. (5 performances/field trips in a 2 week span) I sent out a quick letter to my 2 ChemoBuddies. (If you're reading, I'm so sorry it has been so long) I took a few minutes out of my night last night to get a few postcrossing cards ready to be mailed.

 This card that I made from Washi tape is headed to Poland.

     This card is on its way to Russia.

As for incoming mail, I have gotten a few cool things recently.

 As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of the GoodReads giveaways. I entered for this book of short stories but I didn't win. Then I got a nice e-mail from Jacob M Appel, the author, asking if I would still like a copy. I received it a few days later. I'm not a huge short story fan but this seemed kind of different. I'm willing to give most books a shot. So, thanks Mr. Appel!

Postcrossing card from China.

     I have not been great about updating the project log. I will try to catch up when life slows down a bit. I will try to blog more then too. The Daisy Yellow Index Card a Day challenge starts again soon so I will be adding some art here too if I'm brave :)

Last card from Christmas RR

     I realized earlier that I forgot to take a picture of the stuff I sent out today. 1 outgoing postcard went to Japan and 1 letter went to my 2nd ChemoBuddy.
     My mail headed out next is a card to a university student in Taiwan.

 My incoming mail today was the last card in a Secret Christmas Card RR. I sent mine to Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, France and the Netherlands. I received cards from Germany, The Netherlands, Ireland, and France. This one, which says "Prettige Kerstdagen en een Gelukkig Nieuwjaar" is from Belgium.

First mail of 2015!

Yeah! I finally received some incoming mail this year. My first card/letter is from Belinda in South Africa. I was excited to see South African mail in my box because it has been a while that people have sent to or received mail from me because of the postal strike.

Outgoing to Poland Hotel Room by Edward Hopper

The 366 Project:
Sent: 9
Received: 1

Timmy got a hamster for Christmas. He actually got 2. Santa Claus brought him 1 and she died the next day!?! Seriously. She was Loretta. We bought him one after that.  Meet Blizzard.

End of the year mail haul

   Two days ago, I told you I would write and update you on my postcards. I thought about showing all of my mail but I got a ton of Christmas cards with pictures and I didn't know if my friends/family would mind me posting them. (They all are beautiful!)  I also got a great package from my friend Jenny in Germany that included a card a magnetic notepad and some DELICIOUS Advent chocolates (which I may or may not be devouring at an unhealthy rate...).
     Here are all of my cards over the past month or so. Being a musician in December has greatly interfered with me just sitting around and having time to blog.
   From Poland:  

 From the US- Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado... beautiful

 From Russia. Check out the sticker that was stuck on it. When the Postcrosser sent it to me, the sticker was not there. Anyone every see this sticker before? There's a close up under the postcard. What does it mean?

 From Germany:

China: A postcard of a stamp from 1997.

 From Germany- David took this out of my mailbox and was startled. I love it. I've developed a liking for owls.

 Taiwan:

 More owls from Plymouth, MA- less than 2 hours from me. I'd love to meet more local Postcrossers.

 Czech Republic:

 Russia: (art card. Isn't it pretty?)

 Belarus: More owls! Can you tell I updated my Postcrossing preferences?

 China- Confucius Temple.

 Finland- Moomin!!!! I also love that the proceeds from buying the card will help to build a children's hospital in Helsinki.

 Russia: This card confused me a little. I thought Konigsberg was in Germany. Apparently, after 1945 it is called Kaliningrad. It was the easternmost city in Germany until it was captured after WWII. (According to Wikipedia..lol)

 From Taiwan:

 China:

 From the US- Minnesota. I was telling the Postcrosser that I know the man who is currently renting Einstein's viola from a museum. I have heard it played. It's beautiful.

 These cards are from a Christmas card RR I did through Postcrossing. The first is from Ireland and the next 2 are from Germany, and the last is from the Netherlands.

Oh, I should also show you a gift from my Reddit Secret Santa. I sent a pashmina scarf to a Redditor in CA. I received this gift from a Reddit user in Oregon who didn't tell me their name. Thanks if you are reading this!

    

It is a kitten calendar, which David claimed, cookies and an art kit. I was especially excited about the art kit because I've wanted to try pastels but haven't wanted to pay for them in case I stink at it! lol