Day #309

I sent so many things out today, it takes 3 photos...

These were orphaned postcards I was sent, 2 from Russia and one from Yosemite Park.  I wrote a message on them and sent them back.

These were two post-crossing cards and a card sent to our granddaughter.

I actually wrote 3 letters and the cowboy postcard was another one for Post-Crossing.

Incoming was gratifying too.

A post crossing card from Belarus, a lovely letter from a sponsored child in Kenya, and 3 postcards enclosed in that West End Review card, a Swap-Bot exchange.

Day #303

These post cards were all for Swap Bot swaps.

These are post-crossing and SwapBot

Day #290

Here's lots of outgoing mail--3 letters and two postcards, one of which was for post-crossing.

After all that work, it was depressing that there was no incoming mail.

Day #281

Back in the saddle again.  Wrote FOUR, count' em, letters and made two Mamma Mia envelopes.

Incoming was good, too.

 

Two very nice penpal letters, and a great postcard from South Africa, from someone who got my name on SendSomething.

Day #261

One out and one in today. I really liked the envelope, going to Donna. (I don't know who the kids are; this was a page from a newspaper insert.)

This is a Valentine's Day card and brief note from Sheila.

Day #257

I got several letters mailed off today, including one Post-crossing card. Not sure how many I will get out in the next few days, since I am presently without access to a printer. If I'm lucky, we will get my new printer installed and I'll be back in business again.

I received my first Postcrossing card from Malta today, and a letter from Donna in Oklahoma.

So where was I...?

So I'm back on track again. Look at this -- 4 letters, a card, and a postcrossing card. Yay Me!


Even incoming was fun. Two nice letters and a Post-crossing card.

Day #238

Actually wrote quite a lot this morning... a Christmas card to a friend in Australia, a postcrossing card and replies to 3 pen pal letters. And then I baked more cookies!

Good mail too...The postcrossing card is unusual because it came from a GROUP, so no message but a whole bunch of signatures. There was also a great letter from The Pen Thief (who writes wonderful letters), a LWA pan pal and a letter from Fred in the Philippines.

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 #133

Three outgoing today. A penpal letter, a thank you letter, and the weekly letter to Soldier Amanda.


Good incoming mail. Finally heard from our Japanese daughter that she, her friend and family are OK after the earthquake. There were 2 penpal letters, an envelope of great postcards from Speck, and a card from Brasil for the IOUMA.


But even better were two letters from two of my Compassion kids, Fred in the Philipppines and the first letter from Emmanuella, in Ghana.

Day #88

I added these to the outgoing mail I collected over the long weekend.


Both were Sendsomething people. Haley is in NY and is an actress...plus likes biking and works in a no-kill shelter. Except for the 50 year difference in our ages, we could be contemporaries! LOL. The envelope I chose for her was a program from Oliver! which, as an actress, I thought she would appreciate.

In the afternoon, I had a lapful of incoming mail.


I'm not sure where the post card came from, but I suspect it was someone from the IUMA, since it doesn't seem to be a postcrossing postcard. The letter with the Gregory Peck stamp was great, a new penpal with whom I have much in common. The other two were from pen pals I've been writing to for awhile, since I started this project, and both were such fun to receive.

Day #61

It was another day of no incoming mail. But I had 3 Postcrossing postcards and two penpal letters to go out. I couldn't sleep last night and I think I wrote all of these before 3 a.m.1

Day #36

I had a busy morning. I sent a Jumping Frog of Calaveras County postcard to my sponsored children in the Philippines and in Haiti, along with a VERY watered down version of Twain's original story. I wrote two cards about "my day" to women on Swap-Bot, sent 2 more frog cards to SendSomething people, and wrote a letter to Jeri, using one of my dog envelopes.


Here's the afternoon mail:


The Easter card is from a pen pal, the horse postcard is from a Swap-bot exchange and I'm disappointed at the bad address for "alisa" because I had sent her a card I really liked.

You know, when you start a project like this...or, maybe more particularly, when I start a project like this...you check out everything, contact everybody, do all the things you can, but eventually you settle down to just a few. I'm probably going to stop sending things to people on SendSomething because they don't seem to stick around, and Swap Bot seems to be mostly really young people (one of whom told me it was nice to see "elders" participating), and also to really be geared more to sharing crafts rather than cards and/or letters.

But I've made a few new friends who seem to be sticking around, so perhaps the frenzy will die down a bit. I am committed to more snail mail type of mail, though, so this project blog will continue.

Day #29

Today I sent a long letter to my new penpal, Sheila. I hope I don't scare her off.

Also last night I found this GREAT book of Where's Waldo postcards and was eager to send some off today, so I sent to 2 people on Send Something. I hope to send some of these to a few of my Compassion kids too, the next time I write to them.

The day's mail brought an interesting coincidence. The first card I read was this one, a card from Postcrossing.


and then there was this one from Munich, part of a Swap-Bot postcard swap. The writer says she bought the card last weekend when she spent the weekend in Bratislava!


Finally there was this...

which tells me that I have a heavy letter to pick up at the post office and 78 cents to pay in postage due.

Day #28

Not a lot of outgoing mail today. I wrote a postcard to someone I'd sent a letter to yesterday. I enclosed something in that letter that I meant to send to someone else and I figured she'd be a little confused when she saw it.

I also wrote a letter to my Compassion child in India, who had asked about our dogs and wanted to know, again, what their names were. I had just received some of those cute little Moo stickers with the dogs' pictures, so I just sent her a short letter so I could use the stickers (and I'd just written to her a couple of days ago)

Later, I read the profile of a woman who said she LOVED the musical Wicked. I decided to make an envelope and send her a note.


Then the mail came and it was a good mail day.

There was my first letter from Lenial, the little boy I write to in the Dominican Republic. There was the first letter from a penpal from 16sparrows, to whom I wrote last week. And there were 4 fun postcards, 2 from Postcrossing, and one from a blogger I wrote to. Unfortunately, the third postcard, from Bad Hersfeld, written by someone named Irene, had no indication as to where it came from. I checked Swap-Bot and SendSomething and could not find her in either place. So, Irene, on the off chance that you sent this postcard, please contact me1

Fun day!