Post Haiatus

So here I am back after my heart+ haiatus. Last year, in June 2014, I enrolled in the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. I found out rather quickly that I could not manage studying and keeping up with scanning and posting like I used to. Well, one of the reasons was my scanner was on the fritz for a while, so my lovely track kind of skewed, but - that's okay. I am graduated a certified Holistic Health Coach and I am back. So now, I am back to scanning and posting my postcards. Yesterday, I sent these three out...

To the Netherlands

To Hungary

...and to Poland

Curiouser and Curiouser

After getting assigned 5 'send tos' to Russia, in a row - I then received 4 postcards from The Netherlands in a row!

from Marie-Jose

from Martin (and it's a vintage card
that he found in a curiosity shop, too!)

 

from Marion

and from Hennie

Rather good cards, too.

PenPalWorld

I have a list of penpal sites I have been methodically checking out. They are not all equal. PenpalWorld is kinda sketchy - at least my experience with it has been thus far. The one person who seemed promising - says she sent a letter to me and it bounced back to her saying something like, 'no one lives there.' ... But we do! We do live here! And I have gotten really great mail all week long. Monday, I got a whole stack of catalogs and magazines - it was like flapping Christmas!

Anyway, I digress. On PenpalWorld it seems I am a magnet for those foreign scammer creeps with poorly accented English grammar ... And of course they're all just sure that I am the perfect match for them. Jeezum Crow guys - I just want to pass notes through the postal service not be drowned in insipid attempts to set me up for some scam or another. Sheesh!

PenpalWorld is a little too penpalweird for me.

Mystery Mail

The letter is from Nepal and the postcard is from Finland but I do not know who they are from. I kind of think that the postcard might be from my penpal Niina so I need to retrace to see if she signed her letters as she has on the postcard. I have not opened the letter yet to read it - that is something to be savored.

It is my son's (my eldest child) 22nd birthday, today. I made quiche tarts for brunch for Cerridwen, Daddy, and I. We had each gone back to our own pursuits when Joseph and Alicia came by en-route to an afternoon/evening of birthday fun, followed a minute later by my godson Michael. So it has been a bit busy, and there are other things... Later tonight when everything is quiet, I will open my letter from Nepal. The writer will fare better than some other penpals who have waited quite a while to hear from me but the latest ebbs have finally transitioned back into a flow where I can catch up with my letter writing and such. Finally. I miss the busy fun of it all but yesterday I finally got all of my postcrossing postcards up-to-date on my postcards page.

Outgoing

I am almost caught up on postcards going out. This lot makes up the maximum I can send out at Postcrossings so far, included are two re-sends to cover expired cards ... Hate it when my postcards expire.

I am able to send out nine postcards at a time but once the next three recipients register their cards from me, I'll be able to send out 10 at a time.

Hoped to get more of my received cards posted by now but I am not even close! It is NaNoWriMo time and that is definitely going to be cutting into the time I have available to catch up to penpals I owe letters to. But I figure if I can do at least one a day, I'll be caught up before long. The challenge is doing the envelopes. I cannot make myself mail a dreary envelope ... I'll have to be inventive.

With the postcards above I must post the swap going to Canada and a package to Amy in Maine and a late birthday package to Esther in the Netherlands. But first I need to cut into the amount of words I need to accomplish on my novel today, so I am off to do that now.

 

New Mail To Be Answered

Mail from Cylvia, Esther, and JoAnn.

Posted Today...

Happy Birthday Mail!

I was answering a letter to my penfriend Cylvia when the doorbell rang. The mail carrier had a package that needed to be signed for and she also had my mail, of course -  and what a surprise that among it was a pretty orange envelope with a birthday sticker on the front, from the very friend I was in the midst of writing a letter to! I thought that was cool!

What wasn't cool, however, was the condition in which the card arrived ... I haven't opened it yet, but one can tell it is likely a card by feeling it, and I can see that it is a card because someone between Cylvia's home and mine, has pried into it! I am assuming it is on this side because unfortunately, this kind of thing does occur - our postal system does not have the kind of people of integrity that it once had long ago. People sometimes put money or gift cards in cards so there are people in the trusted positions of postal service who will try to get it out of the envelopes. Disgraceful. Of course, I could be assuming that was what happened, but here are the photos. . .

. . .So it is clear that I am not being completely paranoid, even if I am jumping to the wrong conclusions!

Even so-

It is a very exciting,

and happy surprise

to receive a birthday greeting

from my friend Cylvia!

And

I

will save it 'til

Sunday

so I can open it up

on my actual

birthday.

:D