FEBRUARY

      Can I just say that I love February? Every year in February, I take part in 2 letter writing events which always bring me a lot of wonderful mail from many of my penpals and some new friends as well. I'll tell you a little about each one in case you are interested in joining.

The Month of Letters Challenge- This is a challenge where people sign up to send a letter every day and to respond to any mail that comes in from the "Lettermo" challenge. Many of the participants have participated for years and have their profile on the Lettermo page. It's fun because you can search people with similar interests, have an understanding that you will get a reply from your mail and most likely connect with someone who really enjoys writing letters. I have exchanged letters with so many interesting people through this event. My first piece of mail for LetterMo is going to my penpal Alenka in Slovenia.

 

InCoWriMo- Similar idea. International Correspondence Writing Month- Send at least 1 piece of personal mail every day during the month of February. One of the differences with this challenge is that there's a list of participants but you don't know anything about them. If you want to write to your own penpals, you can do that too. One thing I like about this challenge is that I never know if I'm going to get any mail from this challenge- or who/where it will come from. It's just kind of adventurous for me. When I first participated in this challenge (3 years ago?), it was hosted by someone else and it changed hands last year. So, I think there are some changes, but I'm still glad to have the opportunity to write.  My first piece of mail for InCoWriMo is going to be sent to The Henlo Press, who is hosting the InCoWriMo group on Facebook- I think.... or are they hosting InCoWriMo? I will probably figure that out during the month!

 

       I know that snail mail and letter writing is pretty old-fashioned, but I LOVE it. As a child, my nana used to send me cards and notes through the mail all the time. The excitement I felt when finding that I had mail that I wasn't expecting was great. As I grew older, finding mail in my mailbox and recognizing the writing from a friend or family member always made me smile. (I am actually very sad that many teens right now don't know what their friends' handwriting looks like, or even some of their family.)  It was always nice to know that someone had been thinking about me and cared enough to send a little note to say hello. Nowadays, some of my penpals are my closest friends. We share joyful moments as well as struggles that we are going through. I find that letter writers usually take the time to write so their letters are not shallow or  for lack of a better way to say it, pointless. It takes effort to make time to write to someone. 

      I will try to write some posts about both of these challenges and what I'm sending/receiving for mail. If you are participating in either event and would like a letter, feel free to leave a comment or message me. If you're not participating in the challenge and you just want to catch up, I'd be glad to send you a piece of mail too if you tell me you'd like some. Sometimes I don't send mail to friends/family because some people think I'm odd for enjoying writing, but I think during this time of Covid, people have started to appreciate any kind of connection they can find. 

Mail goals week 1

    If you've been on this blog for a while, you probably know that I started this blog to challenge myself to attempt to send (and hopefully receive) 1 piece of mail for each day of the year. (It was a leap year that year.) After failing for 2 years, I finally reached my goal of sending 366 pieces of mail on the 3rd year. Because I have not been as successful at giving myself some time each day to connect with people, I've decided to reattempt this goal.  I will try to post weekly to keep myself on track. These posts may be short and to the point.

Letters in my "respond pile:" 10? (I just noticed that some of my old letters got mixed in there. Ugh) Letter writers- do you always respond in the order received? I do. Here's my problem. I started writing a letter months ago in a notebook I was trying to use up and I LOST IT. I was quite a few pages in and would hate to start over, but this has been the hold up. Seriously, I'm really OCD about this stuff and my books. Some day I will have an organized life. Until then... my reply pile has ten letters.

Mail sent this week 1/1-1/6): 5 postcards, 1 card
Received this week: 1 postcard and 1 card from the Secret Christmas RR. (1 card that is pictured I received before the new year so I didn't count it in my log)

From Italy. This card also benefits Unicef. 

 From Russia- I really enjoyed this card. It was so elegant looking

From Belarus- I got this one right after the one from Russia. Very similar and pretty. There was a great snowman stamp on the back too.

A few glimpses into daily life

This weekend we had a lot of holiday activities. Here's some pictures from events lately. It has been a bit of an aggravating night so I'd like to spread some beauty around.
 David watching the live nativity at a local church (orange and gray jacket in front of pole)









 Look what we found! A giant post office safe. It's in a church hall. Yes, I know I'm a nerd. Yes, I'm proud of it.









 Matt and the boys at our Christmas tree lighting


 Our town's tree this year before being lit. It's a little.... Charlie Brown-ish this year






 That's a bit better.

 We have a festival of trees to benefit our historical society. People/companies decorate trees (with ornaments, gift cards, presents, etc) and then they raffle them off. I always lose. Someday I will win. Here are some trees (and a really creepy elf in the first one.. lol)


 Books! I was half intrigued and half upset that they ruined the books. lol Cool star though

 The church where I performed my Christmas concert on Sunday








Santa- not the best conductor. I like the enthusiasm though.


Our concert was videotaped and broadcast. If you'd like to hear it, here is the link. Sounds of Christmas Concert I don't play too much in this concert, but the music is nice.  Start at about 22 minutes. PS. Santa's violin was a prop. There was great concern. Check out what the audience sounds like at 1:59: ish 

Blessings

Based on my overwhelming response from the last post (none), I decided not to go with my original idea.  Instead I'll just check in occasionally.






Although I always try to be mindful of my blessings, I think Advent is a good time for me to slow down to prepare my heart for Christmas and to acknowledge the blessings that I have on a daily basis.
      Here are some special moments over the past few days:
1. Starting Unwrapping the Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp with my family. The family time is as wonderful as the message and the activities.

2. The sweet and simplistic prayers of my sons. Why do we make praying so complicated sometime?

3. Today was a student's birthday. This is a student who is especially close to me. She has been singing for me for 4 years in 2 different groups, plus the musicals. I have also had her brother as a student so I have known her family for a long time. This is her last year with me.  I decided to get her a small birthday gift. So, I asked Matt to buy some candy that he has made at work. We picked out a candy cane, pecan turtles and some fudge. When I gave it to her, she was surprised that I had gotten her a gift, which was expected. When I told her that it was candy that Matt had personally made (She has met my family at concerts and has run into them a few times outside of school), she got a little teary and thanked me and told me that we made her feel "really special."  I guess that was my intention, but I didn't think it would mean THAT much to her.

4.  On my drive home tonight- rushing, as usual- I needed to stop at the post office to get something postmarked. The community is on the coast. As I rode up to the top of a hill (right by the governor's house), I was greeted by a beautiful view. The ocean was slightly choppy looking and the color of the sky was fading to the colors of dusk. What really drew my attention was the clouds, which looked like they were illuminated from below.

5.  I came home to a giant pile of mail! I will share my week of mail at the end of the week. I've been getting some great stuff. I probably won't share any of my picture cards since I won't usually put a picture up without asking permission (except my father-in-law that one time..)

Catching up...

     Summer... where did it go?  I go back to teaching on Monday the 29th. My children still have until September 6th to play. I thought I would just come say hello and catch you up on our recent adventures. (Let me preface this by saying that our adventures weren't incredibly exciting, but out of the ordinary for us.)
     In my normal routine, I have been trying to prepare for school- studying music, planning lessons, thinking of my SMART goals, editing lessons, etc. I am also preparing on mentoring out newest member of the music department. (This year I will be mentoring 2 members of the department. The one I mentored last year is a terrific guy and we get along really well. I'm hoping the 2nd person is just as delightful to work with.)  This week, Matt and I sat down and talked about morning/afternoon and bedtime routines for the boys. Neither one of us feel that we need to strictly adhere EXACTLY to certain routines/schedules, but I tend to be more of a structured person than he is. It calms my "control freak" nature makes me feel more prepared when I have a general idea of how things should be going at different points in the day, especially when I'm at work. We've also discussed chores and allowance. We've decided that our sons will have some chores that they will complete to help contribute to the well-being of the family, but there are some "extra/optional" chores that they can add on if they would like to earn an allowance. This was very exciting to David. When he woke up and learned about our new chore system, he got straight to work. He opted to sweep the kitchen, help make lunch, clean the bathroom sink and wash the bathroom mirror. Tim chose to spend a few minutes dusting. It was nice to see them excited about helping out.
     For the special things- We just spent a little time away from home. Matt and I surprised the boys with a night at Great Wolf Lodge New England. It's a splurge for us, but we know the boys really enjoy it.  We had a good time. The boys were happy with their 1 night there. They swam- a lot, rode the water slides, played at the arcade, and then we went out to dinner. We stayed past check out and swam for a while. I really appreciate that my kids are generally very grateful and do not need many things to keep them happy.  I think our cross country trip last year also changed some of the things they look forward to for a vacation.

 

   Originally, we had planned to go Quebec this summer but that didn't go as planned. A few things that we had expected this summer didn't happen. Vacation was one of those things. We realized that we might only have a few days to go away so we wanted somewhere somewhat close. We went to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. (Which felt pretty far away since it was only a few days of vacation- maybe too far.)
    On Saturday, we went to the Turkey Hill Experience. This was pretty fun. We did not get a chance to do the taste lab, but that was okay since we would've been really worried about Timmy's allergies the whole time. Do you have Turkey Hill ice cream where you are? It's delicious. My favorite is double dunker.  We tried free samples of double dunker, cookie butter, orange sherbert, strawberries and cream and I'm sure a few others. They also had free samples of their tea and punch. We learned a lot about the company as well as how the ice cream is made, packaged and distributed.
     We also visited Wilbur Chocolate Shop in Lititz. If you don't know, my husband is now working as a candy maker/chocolatier. (I know, life is rough.) He had WAY more fun then we did here since he knows exactly what each little thing does. Tim was panicking that the woman was giving our samples with cashews in it. I was just hot since the heat index outside was over 105! It was still an interesting shop though. We also accidentally found a HUGE craft fair when we went to Lititz. Unfortunately it was too hot to really enjoy it.
    The unfortunate part of this day was that I really wanted to go to Central Market in Lancaster. Our hotel had a paper that said it was open until 5. When we got there, at 3:30, we saw that it had closed at 2 and would not reopen for the rest of our vacation. Boo.
    The most interesting for me was going to Good N' Plenty, a restaurant with the option to eat "family style," where you are seated with other people until the table is full. Matt was a little apprehensive of this since he's not a big talker, but I loved the idea since I enjoy meeting new people. I had eaten like this in Germany or Austria once. I imagine it can be fascinating sometimes and maybe terrible some other times.  They served us Pennsylvania Dutch food. The table was served a lot: Appetizers: cottage cheese, white bread, wheat bread, apple butter, chow chow (pickled vegetables- new to me), applesauce  Entrees: Fried chicken, ham, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, butter noodles (also new),corn and green beans. Dessert- apple crumb pie, shoo fly pie, ice cream, cherry cheesecake and cracker pudding (New food- not my favorite.)  We ended up sitting with 4 older people from Maryland and a couple from Virginia with their 2 year old. It was a lot of fun.
     For some reason, I didn't think ahead to realize most things in Lancaster (especially Amish related) was closed on Sundays. Dur. We swam a lot and just enjoyed the family time. We rode around and looked at some of the farms too. It was an easy day followed by some yummy take out food.
      On Monday we headed back to Massachusetts. On our way home, we planned to stop at The Crayola Experience. (I know- what's up with all the "experiences?") Other than dealing with a few really loud summer camps, this place was awesome. David was especially excited about coming here.  We played around with many Crayola products and had a lot of time to be creative in many different ways. Honestly, Crayola is a brand that I buy regularly because of the quality of the products and the innovative things I see come from them. David was able to label a crayon "Light pickle green," which was cool since he had written to Crayola to suggest that color. We had tons of fun here and ended up spending more time here than we anticipated.

"Big Blue" the world's largest crayon. Ironically, "Big Blue" is also the mascot of the town I teach in. "Big blue what?" is usually the next question. I think that it must be a subtle way they are supporting the arts. lol.


 So, I look totally goofy in this picture but, if you know me already, you already know I'm weird. This was super cool. That little dragon on David's head is a picture he colored in using special crayons. We then scanned his coloring page into the computer and it became a 3D image which he could put in different backgrounds, interact with by making it fly/move/jump or take a selfie with. We shrunk him down a bit, sat him on David's head and then took this shot. Here is his buddy in the forest.

Here's Tim's:

Interesting huh? They used model magic clay, crayons, markers, digital images and design, chalk, paint, etc. If you have young kids who like art, they would love it. They also came home with a few crayons, their art work, a crayon they molded into a dinosaur and some model magic.
      After we got home, we were treated to dinner at a friend's house. It was us and 2 families from church. We had white chicken chili and this decadent, wonderful chocolate cake. Another great night!
     THEN, I took the boys to visit my parents in Maine. My parents recently sold the house I grew up in in MA and made Maine their permanent residence. It has been an adjustment. We stayed there from Thursday to Saturday. It was extremely relaxing since there wasn't anything that really needed doing. We/I hung out with my parents, swam (Can you tell my kids like to swim? Do you know I hate to swim?), relaxed, wrote a few letters and read. One day my mom brought us to the Willowbrook Museum Village, which is very close to their house.  It's a village set up like it would've been in the 19th century. The boys each did a little scavenger hunt as we explored.  We went on this steam powered carousel. (Apparently I cannot find a picture that will display for this tonight)
Interesting facts: This carousel would've been considered an adult only ride. It goes quite fast, and they had it on the slowest setting. (David had athletic shorts on and his little body kept sliding around everywhere. I thought he was going to fall off.) The horses do not go up and down they go from front to back. This carousel used to be broken down and brought from fair to fair.
     A funny thing happened when we were waiting for the carousel to open to give us a ride. They had music playing and Timmy was whistling along. He found that he knew the march and yelled out "Wait!? Is this John Phillip Sousa!?" It was. Music teacher win. Tim is doomed/honored to be a nerd too.
     Another thing I found interesting was their schoolhouse. They had a list of rules up about how many lashes a child would get for doing something wrong- like drinking in class, talking to a girl, coming to school looking untidy, etc. In the school, there were slate chalkboards out on all of the desks. There were at least 3 messages in beautiful writing saying something to the effect of "Isn't it sad that people don't think teaching penmanship is important?" Yes it is. There were also displays of the pens, inks, books, etc. that were used. I kept thinking to myself "I get annoyed when a middle schooler breaks a pen and ink gets all over them or the desk, can you imagine having a small bottle of ink on each desk?"
    Lastly, their houses- the rooms were so much smaller but so much more functional. I would benefit from each of my rooms having a specific purpose- and making that room work. On the other hand, there was no plumbing in the house and there was no kitchen so, I guess I'll live.
    I also found this. It's a mail wagon. Nice! I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I can tell when our mail comes because our mailman's truck has squeaky breaks. I will often go say hello or catch him before he has to get out of the truck with a package. He and I chat often. My kids sometimes laugh when they hear "mail's here" from a few rooms away from the window. I can't imagine I wouldn't know this contraption was coming. :)

   

         Okay, that's about it for recent adventures. I hope you are well. If your kids are starting back to school, that  everyone feels prepared and excited for the new year. If you wouldn't mind- As I've been typing this blog post, everything keeps reformatting and I'm having major issues. Can you let me know if everything seems okay on your end as a viewer? If not, please let me know what is not coming out right. Thanks in advance!

    

Update

      If you are a person who chats with me often (or follows the blog), you probably know that my February is usually spent writing tons of letters, March- making a bunch of music with various groups and April is a bit of a break before my end of the year concerts make me super busy. Currently I'm on the tail end of April school vacation I have a bit of time before a dentist appointment so I thought I would use that time to say hello! Here's what has been going on with me.  I'll start with my mail related stuff since most of the people who read this, I've connected with through my 366 Project, penpalling or Postcrossing.

Mail update:

     Can you believe that, for the first time in... forever, that I actually got to a point where every single letter that needed a response was answered? I have never really had no "reply" pile. Lately the mail has started coming in again and I have this pile to respond to.

   Marilyn, your letter is on the way. Then there is a letter from Ashley in Wi, Cathey in TX, Sue in Australia and Marianne in The Netherlands. Ambitiously, I'm trying to answer all of these this week/ weekend.
     I have also gotten some cool postcards lately. They are from Russia, US (from my friend Jessie), China, US, Taiwan. Germany and The Netherlands :

    This little card came for Timmy and I had to show it to you. It's a watercolor card that was painted by the Postcrosser who sent it to him. I kind of want to steal it! Ha ha. Very cute!

Work:

    Work has been busy, as always. It has been a mix of super rewarding and super aggravating. At the beginning of the month, my students performed in the Junior District Festival.  (If you want to know more about the festival, I have written about them in previous blog posts.) Since my schedule is insane, I have been eating my lunch with the students who were preparing for the festival everyday for about 2 months. It was slightly stressful to not have any free time during the day, but I enjoyed this chance to work with 6 of them on a more individual level. I was very proud of them all. They all grew a lot musically over the past few months. I also really enjoyed getting to know them all a little better, though some of them feel like additional children to me by this point. I was also managing the boys choir at this festival. All of the boys were great. It was a great experience for me (again!).
Boys Chorus:

Girls Chorus:

Flowers my students gave me (Rather, flowers 1 family gave me and were gracious enough to say they were from everybody! Unnecessary, but appreciated):

     Then, the next week, our school put on the musical Peter Pan. Honestly, this cast was not the easiest to work with so at times it was very stressful. With that being said, the students were great and very talented, just a lot of drama with some of the older students and some people who were not as cooperative, no- just people who didn't think other people were as important as they were, as others. I'm glad it's over. I was happy with the performances of most of the students and I was also proud of a woman who stepped up as the new drama director for the first time this year. (I am the music director for the show) I also got some pretty flowers from "the cast." (Aka.. best friend of the girl who gave me the flowers the week before and 2 other families. ha ha.)

   One thing I have really valued over the past few weeks is the connection that I have with many of my students. I appreciate that they are willing to be vulnerable and try all the things I ask them to, despite the fact that their voice "can't do that," or so they think. I feel honored that many of their families respect me and get to know me. I am glad I have a place of influence with many of these kids in a time when they need it.

Personal:

    There have been lots of changes here too. Matt's job has changed a bit. He used to manage a candy store during the nights and weekends. He had been asked if he would have interest apprenticing to be a candy maker a while ago. He was very interested. Unfortunately, the man he was learning from died unexpectedly. Matt has taken on the responsibility of this new position during their busiest season, right before Easter. Fortunately for us, he loves it and it has changed his schedule so that he is home more at night and on the weekends. It has been quite the adjustment but it's pretty cool. (Not to mention, chocolate!!!)
     The boys are good. They are both doing very well in school. Baseball season is starting up. David had his first practice last night and Timmy has his first scrimmage tonight. We took a few nights and went to my parents' house in Maine. On the way up we stopped on the beach and looked at some tidepools in York, Maine. The next day we went to visit my cousin, Tom, in New Hampshire. We had not seen his family in a few years so we were really happy that they were around. I hope we get together more often. Other than that, we just relaxed and spent a lot of time hanging out and reading.
     Speaking of relaxing, today is the nicest day of the year so far. It's 73 here in Ma. Matt is working. The boys and I decided to go for a walk on our local rail trail. We went to a playground and then walked about 2 miles. I love the rail trail in the fall and was surprised that it looked a little less alive in the spring. (I think I was expecting more green!) Beautiful day though!
Playground

Rail trail

 We heard some rustling and found this little pile of squirmy snakes. Ashley, I don't know why, but this made me think of you. Perhaps it was all the rattlesnake talk last year.

 Beaver damage

3,000 miles from Calais, ME to Key West, FL.  Wouldn't that be a cool hike?

      In other very unfortunate news, I think that my plantar fasciitis is coming back in both feet. I have been in excruciating pain for a few days despite stretching. I'm icing my feet like crazy in hopes that I won't pay for exercising tonight. I have a massage scheduled for tomorrow so maybe that will help.
    

Upcoming:

    The next few weeks are pretty tame but things will get busy soon. As I mentioned earlier, Timmy has his first scrimmage tonight. I'm looking forward to getting to know his new team.  He is really enjoying playing with them so far.
      I have a concert to play for on 4/30 and then 2 graduations to play in. I'm conducting 3 concerts between now and the end of the school year.
      We are also considering going to Canada for a vacation this summer. We're trying to decide between visiting Quebec or Nova Scotia? If you have been to Canada, or live there, we would be glad to get some recommendations about where we should stay or what we should try to do. Where are some of your favorite places?