Day #221

Another slow day, with only one letter written. But I got my December journal look designed!

Incoming was one post-crossing card, 2 penpal letters and our very first Christmas card.

The Christmas card is from my first boy friend, whom I dated from age 13-16. He is now a Jesuit, but we still exchange cards at Christmas time. His is always the first card I receive and it drives me crazy because he always beats me. But this time I got him. I posted our annual Christmas letter on line and he received it a whole three days before his card arrived. (This may be due to the scary news in his card that he is battling what he calls "the old man's cancer"--I don't know if this is the cancer his father died of or prostate cancer, which I assume can be considered an old man's cancer)

Day #162

I have apparently offended the gods of mail. I sacrifice to them every day and each day I go to the mailbox and find nothing in return. All I got today was a request for money.

However, I sent a lot--a bunch of postcards from my latest trip to San Diego, all announcing the birth of our granddaughter, a post card to a neighbor, and a letter to a pen pal.


Maybe tomorrow there will be mail.

Day #139

The outgoing mail was a combination of what was written on Sunday, and what written today. Today was a day for long letters.

Only one letter incoming, from Karen, who just moved to Calgary. Now Karen's pen is very light and I struggle to read her letters, and as she just moved, I needed her return address from the envelope, but the end of the address (which turned out to be "SW") had been stamped over by the post office. So I did a Google search and--what fun!--I found a real estate video of the guy who was trying to sell their house. So I got to see it before they moved in.

I also created a spreadsheet today to track when letters arrive and addresses of writers. I know that many are going to drop off because we don't click and this is a good way to track that...and discard the drop offs after a few months.

I found out I have heard from 36 people since I started the project. My best writer has sent 8 letters. Second are two women who have each written 4 times, then 3 who have written 3 times (not all of these wrote their first letter at the same time, of course). Thirteen have only written once and I guess after receiving my reply aren't interested in continuing the correspondence, but who knows--maybe I will hear again from them some day. I'm happy to get a letter a month from someone. Not happy...thrilled!

I also found a letter buried under the junk on my desk which I haven't answered in over a month...I will be answering that letter tonight! (Maybe that happened to some of my letters that have not been answered.)

Day #110

I liked my outgoing letter envelopes today.

One was from a cookie sheet that I just bought, the other was a brochure for Scarborough Boys, at ACT. I folded it around the letter and taped the ends to make it an envelope. The third letter, to a Swap Bot person was just in a regular envelope. There were also two postcrossing postcards.

There was just one incoming postcard, from a woman in So. California. I think it's very cute!