Where'd October go?

Hello, everyone!

I promise I haven't forgotten you, but October was just a really busy month for me! I actually stopped taking pics of stuff I was sending because I guess I felt like I didn't have the 10 seconds it took to take some.

I figure in the month of October I have sent 3 Postcrossing postcards, 6 postcards for Swap-Bot swaps, 12 letters/flat mail for Swap-bot swaps, 3 missionary letters, and 4 letters for my pen pals totaling 28 pieces of outgoing mail if I counted correctly.

In any case, here's the pics I do have:

Incoming Postcrossing, Swap-Bot and personal postcards all arrived on the same day. That's one happy mailbox!

Snail Mail Fail

So the other day when I was digging up my Christmas decor, I was horrified to find about a dozen unsent thank you postcards from my wedding. It may not be a big deal to some of you, but our wedding was almost two and a half years ago!

Growing up, my mother instilled in me a serious attitude of gratitude. Somehow I got it in my head that as far as serious sins are concerned, unsent thank you notes fall just after murder and fornication.

I know I'm being unnecessarily hard on myself here. It was an honest mistake. I really legitimately 100% thought I had completed all those darn handwritten thank you notes and posted them in a graceful amount of time following the wedding. Based on the number of left over blanks I'm certain at least 60 or so made it to the mailbox.

But still... there's one dozen that remains, most of which are addressed to my close relatives and one of my oldest childhood friends!

To add to my guilt, two of the dozen recipients have actually died since my wedding. I just pray that God will pass the message along to them and they can all have a good laugh about it together. :')

Postcrossing Album

Over the weekend I snatched up a totally cute 40 page magnetic photo album from a thrift store. It's in great condition, hardly any wear and tear, and the UPC even says it's less than 5 years old from from Target.

The best part is it's just what I've been looking for to store my Postcrossing booty. (The second best part is that I got it for a mere buck fifty plus tax!) Take a gander at half the cards I've received so far.

About 5 of my sent cards were all registered this week, so I'm expecting a postal ambush to add to my collection shortly. :)

Today's Outgoing November 19, 2014

I'm afraid the change of seasons has hit me hard and the winter blues have made it hard for me to want to do much of anything remotely social. The growing list of pen pals I owe replies to has been a little daunting, so I decided to try getting back in the game slowly with some short, simple postcards for postcrossing.com.

  I hope to take some time to share the postcards I have received in the near future!

Site Review: Postcrossing

A couple weeks ago I mentioned I was going to try playing around with postcrossing.com. Postcrossing is unique because it provides a way for users around the world to exchange postcards. However, there are some strings attached before your mailbox can pile up with exotic foreign mail!

One of the things I liked is that you must send before you can receive.  Every postcard has a unique code that needs to be written somewhere on the card.Your address will not be given to a sender until someone records that they have received a postcard from you. Even then, you don't have an instant postcard collection. Your address will be distributed to one person per card you send.

Postcrossing also has a limit in place so you don't get too far ahead of every one else.When you first start, you can send up to five postcards at once. These are referred to as "traveling" postcards until the recipient enters the code onto the website. Only after the postcard's code is recorded does it count as a "sent" postcard. This limit does seem to be a little flexible though: after your first five cards have been received your traveling postcard limit will increase to six. (I'm not sure if this continues escalating like some kind of leveling system or not, but the gamer in me is eager to find out!)

A visual of my Postcrossing escapades. Blue lines are postcards I have sent, the red line is the one have received so far.

I'm hurrying!

As you can see, I've sent a lot more postcards than I have received so far, but let's not forget this is snail mail! I mean look at this map! Germany, Russia, Ukraine, China, Taiwan, and Malta are all pretty distant destinations. (I also have sent one to New York, but as I have never been, it's still a little glamorous in my mind.) Factoring in the distance and especially business days vs weekends etc, 18 days of travel time so far really isn't all that much for most of my initial cards.

In theory if enough time passes (and those assigned my address aren't forgetful!) it will all even out 1:1. The turn around time from when my first card was received and when I got one in my mailbox was much shorter than I expected; however, it was being sent from within my own country. (By the way, Postcrossing does give you the option to choose if you want to get postcards from your own country or not.)

Another nice little tidbit I enjoy about Postcrossing is that it tracks your total mileage! I was pretty impressed by these stats, and so far there are only 8 total cards involved! I honestly can't imagine what these numbers will look like in a year's time.

All in all, it's a pretty cool site! I'd really reccommend it. And for the record, they aren't paying me to say any of this or anything. (Come on, you really think I'm that cool?) There's only one thing I would change about Postcrossing: I'd really love it if they put in some kind of a comprehensive map like the one I made above, but for now you can only view maps for the journey of individual cards.

Today's Outgoing (August 13, 2014)

Headed out to Ariel in Massachusetts and Jessica in Georgia!