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!

Some of Today's Outgoing: September 21, 2015

I can't believe I didn't notice earlier, but Fairy Godmother is totally enchanting that stamp.

Believe it or not, I've been sending TONS of mail out this weekend, and have failed to photographically document almost all of it.

Recently I've discovered a new snail mail website, Swap Bot, and am just barely getting my feet wet testing it out. I plan to post a more complete review when my research is complete. ;) The above letter is just one item from my five initial swaps I'm experimenting with. Because I'm a noob who has yet to establish a solid track record for coming through with swaps, I'm limited to participating in simple exchanges.

This weekend alone I've sent 8 postcards for Postcrossing, 5 Postcards detailing the highlight of my week for Swap Bot, 1 postcard featuring Colorado wildlife (also for Swap Bot), a full blown introductory pen pal letter to a stranger in New Zealand (assigned by Swap Bot, pictured above), and two more tourism themed postcard swaps to 4 more partners I plan to send tonight. Grand total: 19.

My Postcrossing Anniversary

Today I realized that I've been a member of Postcrossing just over one year! Hooray!


I can hardly believe it's been that long. So far I've collected 50 postcards!  The two that have traveled the farthest are from Indonesia and Russia. (It's hard to figure out exactly how far they've come. I'm not sure if Postcrossing calculates it by heading east or west.)

The lines on this map make me think of missiles more than postcards. Maybe if everyone did a little Postcrossing we could get by with fewer missiles. Or so I'll keep dreaming.

 The postcards kind of come in waves of two or three on the same day rather than a nice even one per week, but that really doesn't bother me. I've really enjoyed finding all these surprises and seeing more of the world this way. 9/10, highly recommend, would do again. ;)
I just can't believe snail mail has gone out of style. It's different than just online friends! Online I usually immediately block strangers who try to contact me. I don't like people snooping around in what feels like my private (albeit virtual) space. With snail mail the world is both bigger and smaller. The distance is more apparent when you consider how many days you check your box waiting for something before it finally arrives. Thinking about how many hands, trucks, planes etc a postcard comes into contact with on it's way to you makes the world feel very expansive. However, reading whatever little snippet of life people choose to share makes the world feel so small. We're all just people here, and we do a lot of the same things and have a lot of the same problems. I am so glad I've gotten to connect with so many people this way.  

Today's Outgoing: September 16, 2015

I'm afraid I smooshed Cathleen's face, but this is probably my favorite envelope of the moment.

Today's Outgoing: September 10, 2015

Quite a heap headed out today! Letters for Monica, Crystal and Ariel; and some super cute moving announcements for just about everyone else.

 

Today's Outgoing: September 2, 2015

Here's my first letter for my third missionary cousin Megan. She's in New Jersey and actually left earlier this summer. Oops! Better late than never?

 

Yesterday's Outgoing: August 31, 2015

Finally staring to catch up now that the move is over!

Today's Outgoing: Mid August 2015

Another blah post. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to posting something legitimately interesting, but for now I am still swamped with all that life-y stuff.  In any case, I did manage to get one letter and a couple birthday cards out.

Today's Outgoing: August 4, 2015

Aw, peas!

Feels like it's been a while since I've managed to send anything out. I've been swamped with trying to get a new place to live. If all goes well, I hope everything will be settled and back to normal before September ends. We'll see how that goes.

In any case, I did manage to get this one out to my sister-in-law Lara. Obviously the address labels are pea free in real life, but I decided it is a slightly better alternative to scribbling them out as Google still has not restored it's editing program needed to make the addresses invisible. The pea sticker is the right shape, so I'm guessing we'll be seeing lots of peas in the near future.

 

Today's Outgoing: July 21, 2015

Managed to get a whopping 4 letters ready to go today. 2 for missionary mail, and 2 for pen pals. It's amazing. After a few weeks of mail draught, I'm behind again after several letters arrived close together! 4 down, but 4 or 5 still to go.

I've also gained several new pals in recent weeks: Iris who I've already mentioned, Crystal in Texas, Monica in Indiana, and most recently Diana in Germany. I'm very glad to get to know these new ladies. :)

Today's Outgoing: July 10, 2015

Here's my first letter to Monica in Indiana. Keeping it simple. :)

Today's Outgoing: July 8, 2015

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Bad news, guys. Google got rid of the awesome, nearly identical to Photoshop, photo editor it had built in and replaced it with garbage. That said, looks like we're back to ugly striped pics. :(

Good news is that Iris' envelope turned out awesome. Crystal's isn't exactly bad either, but I'm afraid Iris' upcycled children's book/Cameo addressed one is far superior. Sorry Crystal!

Incoming Missionary Mail!! :)

 If you can't already tell by the lack of posts, I've kind of hit a dry spell with snail mail. For the last few weeks I've been 100% caught up on my outgoing, but have been finding an empty mail box day after day. Not even Postcrossing has come through for me. (I've actually had to dig up some of my other hobbies to keep me occupied!)

However...

 Look what I was so happy to find in my email inbox this morning! I am so excited!

Slowly but surely the Mexican mail system has been working just fine, and my missionary cousin Jason is getting my dorky little letters. :) Even more than that, they're actually making a difference. Jason wrote me to say:

 "Thank you so much for your cards. They seem to be getting to me right at the right times during stressful moments to give me a boost to get through them." 

That is totally ideal of course, but I just figured that more often than not they'd just be a silly little perk.

Kristie recently also gave me the wonderful pleasure of surprising me with a card she made herself! I just haven't taken a picture of it yet, but I'll have to add it to this post as soon as I do. :) It's seriously cute.

 

Today's Outgoing: June 17, 2015

New batch of missionary mail.

Totally diggin' that jelly bean encrusted cake. I made these top two envelopes from magazine ads. I'm hoping they aren't too fragile for international travel.

Pusheen is always birthday appropriate.

Today's Outgoing: June 12, 2015

And here is the first of the Where's Waldo envelopes.

Today's Outgoing: June 10, 2015

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Just a couple birthday cards headed out locally and to England. :)

Today's Outgoing: June 9, 2015

I completed a new batch of desecrated/evolved children's book envelopes! Cathleen gets to be the first recipient of the Cinderella edition. :)

Today's Outgoing: June 2, 2015

This one is going out to my newest pen pal! Iris lives in Belgium, and we "met" through Postcrossing.

A while ago I found a bunch of extra thank you postcards from my wedding, so I've been sending out small batches of them for Postcrossing not because I'm a narcissist, but because hopefully it makes an interesting card for the recipient. I always include our wedding date in my note.

Iris sent me an email back through Postcrossing asking for my address so she could send me a thank you in return. I thought she just meant a thank you for sending her a postcard and that she was really going above and beyond the usual e-mail thank yous you can send through Postcrossing, but I was floored by what I found when her thank you arrived. Not only did she send me one of her own {gorgeous!} wedding thank yous, but we were also both married on the exact same day!!! Seriously, how amazing is that?

I got her card a few weeks ago, and I still can't get over its perfection. So beautiful!

Today's Outgoing: May 28, 2015

Today's Outgoing: May 27, 2015

Today's Outgoing: May 14, 2015

Another one!