Happy New Year!

     Happy New Year! I've seen many more readers from Finland and a few places that I haven't seen before (Serbia, Pakistan, etc) on my blog. Welcome! I'd love to get to know you all. A large snowstorm on the East Coast delayed the end of my winter break so I got an opportunity to stay home a few extra days. Here are some pictures since I last wrote.

 The boys dressed up for Christmas. Sorry the lighting is bright and you can't see how nice the tree looked.

 He was slightly excited with his new tablet.

 David and I and the ornament he made me at school.

 David at Grammy's.

 The boys and their cousin. We took a series of pictures. This is the least awful- and David makes me laugh.

 Tin can robot. I'm sure he'll love putting this together.

 Our most recent snowstorm provided many opportunities for the boys to go play. David is by the telephone pole, buried up to his shoulders. He is throwing snowballs at Tim, whose head you can see on the right and is also in a big pile.  They were having a blast.

The dagger icicles hanging from the house. They were huge.

Resolutions?

    How do you feel about resolutions? Every year, I pretty much make the same ones- get in shape, get the apartment organized, etc. This year, I have read many posts from bloggers about how they picked one word and focused on that 1 word for the entire year. Rather than fail at a list of resolutions, they chose something that would help guide their decisions. I have decided that this is something I'm going to try this year.
     I sat down and considered which word I would choose to focus on. The first word that popped into my head was "Declutter." I have had so much going on this year that I felt kind of frantic for a lot of it. Anyone who knows me well will know that I'm a pile person and frequently my apartment (and my car, classroom, office...life)  gets pretty cluttered because of it. However, declutter does not really have positive connotations in my head so I decided that I would like another one. I decided to go about this in a backwards way. I thought about what I wanted to change and why I wanted those things to change. Ultimately, what were my real goals rather than the superficial ones?
     This year was tough. There were a lot of events that slowed me down to think about life, and quite honestly, there were things that really made me extremely concerned about the world my children are growing up in. (Not like I haven't felt this before, but it was one thing after another this year.) The Boston Marathon Bombings is one of the events that I'm thinking of. After some praying and thinking, I realized that this past month I have been pretty burnt out and anxious. I have let some friendships get weaker, stopped writing, been somewhat content in the messiness and gotten used to feeling stressed and frantic. I have also felt like, since I have not felt 100% myself, I have not been myself in my relationships with people.  So, I'm choosing my word: REJUVENATE.

     Good ol' Merriam Webster defines rejuvenate: ": to make (someone) feel or look young, healthy, or energetic again, 2 : to give new strength or energy to (something)"

   Ironically, as a Christian, I don't think I can rejuvenate myself so one of the major things I'd like to focus on this year is my relationship with God. As Galatians 2:20 says "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." I think if I concentrate this year on strengthening my faith, renewal and rejuvenation will come. 

     There are things I can work on though- getting healthy, making my life less cluttered so I can do things more effectively, investing in my relationships with friends and family and reconnecting with some of them as well. I guess the main reason I decided to choose one word is that I can use the word to help me in my decisions. How often do I say "yes" to things I don't really want to do or things I feel I have to (that aren't actually things I HAVE to) and then feel more overwhelmed?  I actually started considering this in late December. It led to me accepting invitations that I would've turned down normally and resulted in some nice times with friends. My kids are also enjoying me being a little more relaxed. 

     I'll be joining the community at oneword365.com to encourage others and keep myself accountable. I'm sure I'll blog more about it during the year.  If you were going to choose one word for yourself, which word would you choose? What are your goals this year?

 

Mail..

    Speaking of the blog, should I try the 366 challenge again? I will eventually succeed at this. Since writing is a huge stress reliever for me (when I'm not making myself anxious about not getting back to people within a certain time frame), I will continue the challenge. If I don't reach my goal this year I will probably not try again. I will not stress about it. If you don't know what my challenge was, I was hoping to send and receive at least 366 pieces of mail within the span of one year. (That year had was a leap year.)  I was doing fairly well this year and then my laptop broke and I lost track of everything.This also affected my blogging.

     So far I have a letter out to Katherine in Australia and Larry in Minnesota. No mail received yet. NOTHING at all, not even a bill.  If you'd like to send me something, or start penpalling, leave me a message and I will get in touch with you. I would like to get caught up with all of my normal penpals before I take on any new pals but I'm hoping that I can do that fairly quickly.  If you'd like to correspond, please add your address to my postable.  If I see anybody new added, I'll send you a postcard :)

2014 Mail Challenge:

Sent: 4- Letter to Katherine- Australia,  Letter to Larry- USA, Postcrossing card  US-2570859     to Germany, and a US to US postcard swap headed to Washington.

Received: 0 

 

 

2 good mail days

Incoming....

     Both pieces of incoming mail are responses to Lettermo postcards I sent out. I look forward to responding to both of them!

 Jackie- Did you stamp this or print it? Very cool. I would like to make my own postcards but I'm generally just bad at art. :( I try. I'm thinking of trying a mail art project this month. I'll see...

  Angie (from Mailbox Happiness)- I love the postcard from you too. Great idea. I just read your blog last night about how your writing has evolved over the month so it was nice to get your postcard today. I approached writing a little differently this time. Most of my first correspondences this time were just about what was going on here and general conversation, rather than the awkward intro letters. Now that people are responding, I will respond and tell them a little more about me and my family. It is a lot easier knowing more about them too. All of the people who have written seem like they are great letter writers. Nobody left me in a situation where I didn't have anything to respond to or talk about. Good stuff. I'm really glad I am taking part of LetterMo this year.

Outgoing...

     Package for Ashley, 2 soldier letters, 2 postcrossing cards (Finland and Russia) and 3 Lettermo postcards to people who signed my postable. 

What's a Postable?

     Postable is an online address book. From what I've read, it is very secure and lots of people that I've contacted through Lettermo are using it. Basically, it stores your addresses online and you can access it from wherever you are. This will save me (and, more so, Matt) a lot of frustration since I won't have letters hanging out all over the house. (Except letters in a "special spot" like Ashley's. Ugh. I will find it.)  It will also be nice if I'm on vacation and pick up some postcards for my friends. So, please feel free to sign my Postable and let me know if you have one of your own. I'll send any new friends a postcard  :)
 

Blizzard mail

Blizzard!!!!

    Hello from snowy Massachusetts. We're supposed to get 16-24" of snow tonight, which is nothing compared to what some of my friends get for snow, but a lot for here. Here are some pictures of the storm right now:

 Timmy in action

 Matt, David and Timmy sledding in our side yard. (Well, Matt is pushing rather than sledding!)

 David.. who really flies with a good push.

 The side yard/driveway. We live next to a shop, hence the classy dumpster. Past the dumpster, next to the snowy truck, is a huge pile of lobster traps. A fisherman from Gloucester stores them here. (Just some random info. for you :) )

 Looking down toward the highway.

 Across the street.

 Timmy.

Timmy probably secretly hoping to run David over.

     I'll take more pictures for "after" shots.

Incoming....

    Only got 1 letter today. It was from Linda, a penpal from AL. I loved a little sticker she had on there.  It made my day.

  The other day I was super excited because Matt texted me that I got a package from Italy. I wasn't expecting a package from Italy so I was a bit surprised. In fact, I don't even have a penpal from Italy. I got home from work and rushed to my mail. I pulled open the package and found a postcard and a box. The postcard from Postcrosser Lamberto in Italy. (Impressive- he's the number 1 postcrosser in Italy for postcards sent and distance sent!) In addition to being a super postcrosser, he seems really nice. In addition to the postcard, there were 2 pairs of Timberland sunglasses in there. What a cool random act of mail kindness :)

Outgoing....

    What blizzard? Good thing John was working at the post office and waiting for me to come by. lol. (The post office is closed tomorrow here. No mail delivery I'm sure. Maybe this will make Monday and awesome mail day!) 
    Today I sent 3 Postcrossing postcards and care packages to soldiers 2 and 3. May I just say I hate customs forms for the military packages? Thanks. Here's the loot:

 I ran out of shipping tape so duct tape had to work for my top package. (That's a Month of Letter sticker on there too!)

Other...

    We tried the miso soup and Chinese noodles sent in the food swap. They were tasty. It's a good thing we have Ramen noodles because here were the directions:

 In Japanese, I believe it says: "Dear Jen, it's instant soup and noodles. Are you really trying to read the directions? Let me draw you a picture... dummy."  The pictures worked..lol.

      This was tasty. The noodles tasted different than the noodles that are in our similar noodles. I was also surprised that the miso soup flavoring was a liquid. Many times with instant foods in the US, the seasonings are dehydrated. My penpal Akiko said that the curry and the pasta sauce that was sent in the swap should be put in boiling water, heated in the package and then used on the food. Hmm... I'll try them all soon. Timmy wanted to try the soup and he really liked it too. (Tim says: "That soup was awesome- a little spicy but very yummy")

     In other notes, I just got a postable. If you'd like, please update your address for my online (secure) contact book.  A lot of people from A Month of Letters are using it. It will certainly make things easier if I'm trying to send a letter from school or something.
    
    Have I rambled enough yet? Maybe I'll go finish Ashley's letter (seriously) and write a few letters.