Why don't you write me, A letter would brighten My loneliest evening.

This month I am participating in Lettermo !
I was so pleased that AlkalineKiwi from Bookcrossing posted about it on facebook, so I found Lettermo in time to start.
Seeing as our mail days here don't match theirs (no Saturday mail here sadly) and their holidays are different, I decided to just write something every day of the month.
So half way through and I have sent 25 items so far. One of those got returned in the mail.
I haven't received any mail from lettermo participants but then I am on the other side of the world from most of them!
I'm having fun finding people to send things to!
I've forgotten to take photos of everything I have sent so here's just some of my outgoing mail.

Some of the sites/blogs  I have found people to send things to are-
http://www.susanbranch.com/2012/04/how-to-write-a-good-letter-save-the-post-office/
swapbot.com
sendsomething.net
http://365lettersblog.blogspot.com.au/
Letterwritersalliance
http://janedavies-collagejourneys.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/the-post-office.html
http://www.postcrossing.com/user/TedEBear
http://goodmailday.com/2011/12/16/2012-call-for-correspondents/
http://mallardtrailmail.blogspot.com.au/
http://paperbased.net/blog/

C'mon deliver the letter, the sooner, the better...

 

The Indextrious Reader is hosting this cool Reading Challenge.

Read 4,8 or 12 Postal themed books and review them.

I've just finished reading "Every Boy's got one" by Meg Cabot, which I *think* qualifies as postal themed, it's written in lots of diary entries, PDA entries, Blackberry emails and telegraphs.

It's typical light, funny Cabot, suitable for older teens but still amusing for adults, a good book to read when you need a rest from heavier books. 

I liked the way it was written with the main character Jane, writing in her journal while still having conversations, (I've no idea how she wrote that fast though) and the parts about her cat "The Dude" were hilarious. 

I'm not sure you can take a cat directly from the USA to Italy, surely there'd be quarantine issues there, but it was set in 2005 I guess. 

Other Books I might read for the challenge include-

Feeling sorry for Celia (read)

Daddy long legs and Dear Enemy (Bc book and ebook)

Dear Zoe *library

Next to Love (read)

You gotta have balls (bc book)

Tom the outback mailman * library

The Baker st Letters *library

13 little blue envelopes (ebook)

Going Postal ?

A local post office history book *library

The Distant Hours ?

92 Pacific Boulevard (bc book)

50 harbour street (bc book)

The Prodigal sister (mums)

The Shelly beach writers group (mums)

Perks of being a wallflower ?
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (bc book)

Tea and Toast

It's been 3 months today and I still can't believe it most days.
Everytime I wish for the weekend to come faster, I stop and wish time would stand still instead, every day and week takes us further from when you were with us last.

3 of the kids have turned a year older with you being there, H started walking and the next grandbaby will be here very soon. H's Christening and Christmas were both so hard without you.

I miss talking to you on the phone, nobody else cares about the details like you did.
Reading your books makes me sad that you aren't here to tell me what you think about them.
I'm lonely with you and never again seems so impossible.
I wish I'd asked you more questions, nobody else knows the answers now.
I wish we'd known we didn't have much time left.
I wish I'd visited you more especially that last week.
I wish we knew what you wanted done with things.

I'm glad you were here for all 5 of my children being born.
And so many birthdays and other special days.
I'm sorry about the bad things I did, the times I just didn't think.
I'm sorry I was a horrible teenager.
I hope you know how much we all love you.
I hope you know how much dad loved you.

We're all a bit lost without you.
You were our glue.

I miss you so much.

Life begins at 40. ..Incoming Mail

 Some of the mail I have received from people after sending out my 40 postcards.

 This lovely postcard is from Sorhca Sidhe who is also doing a mail project.
(I do not know how to rotate these photos, even google wasn't helpful!)

I have now received all 3 of my postcards from the Love Notes project.

Guerilla Bally, I won this in the Bookcrossing forum. It's a Bookcrossing/yarn bomb hybrid!

The other day I took a "me" day, I had to do some tafe work though, but I only did bare minimum housework and read and wrote letters instead.

Then there's the joy of getting your desk clean, and knowing that all your letters are answered, and you can see the wood on it again.  ~Lady Bird Johnson

Life Begins at 40...cards 26-40

All 40 postcards have been sent!

I sent cards to Australia (NSW,TAS,Qld,SA), New Zealand, Holland, Estonia, Canada, England, Latvia, Algeria, Brazil, Switzerland, Finland and America!

I've had a reply from Patty at Just Letter Rip

Card 26 went to April in the USA, April and I wrote to each other a few times then stopped, I'm not sure what happened. So I sent April one of my cards.

Card 27 went to Jenn from Mountains and Musings who sent me a Pantone postcard a while ago.

Sorcha was the recipient of card number 28, Sorcha is also doing a mail project, she's making some fantastic mailart!

Cards 29,30 and 31 all went to members of Bookcrossing who replied to a post in the forums there. Card number 30 went off to Algeria, I don't think I've ever sent a card to Algeria before, not even through Postcrossing.

Card 32 went to Colleen in the USA, like April, Colleen and I used to write and stopped. Maybe I'll find some of my old penpals through this project.

Card 33 I sent to Talita from Brazil whose name I found on the GoodMailDay blog.

And cards 34-40 all went to members of Bookcrossing who had replied to my post in the forums.
Cheating I know but I sent 2 to Finland, 1 to Switzerland, 3 to the USA and 1 to England.

Hopefully some of my 40 postcards made people happy to get a surprise in the mail, much better then a letterbox full of bills!
I enjoyed sending them out and finding people to send them to.

Hopefully over time I will get a few more replies!

In my search for mail projects, I found Love Notes So I joined Jennifer's project and have sent 2 of my Love Notes out so far. Mine are not as artistic as some of the ones Jennifer has posted on her blog, but hopefully my partner has enjoyed them. I haven't received mine in the mail yet.

Here come Santa Claus....

Danielle at Fivelittlereasons posted last week about How to get the best Santa photo and included a photo of her lovely Christmas album that she keeps all their Santa photos in.

I looked around for a similar album and couldn't find anything. So I looked at Kmart in their photo album section and they had nothing that would hold a single photo to a page.

But in the Scrapbooking department I found the perfect album-
A Creativ  brand 8'x8' scrap booking album in Red.

 They were only $5 each and you can buy extra pages to add in. My Kmart didn't have the extra pages so I bought 2 albums as I have photos of my kids with Santa from 1992 onwards, so I needed more then the 20 spaces there are in one album.
I printed the dates on a piece of paper and slipped it in the cover. I kept it plain but you could do something more fancy if you liked.

Much better then before where all our photos were just loose in the paper cards you get with the photos.
This photo was taken in 1992, when I had just one child!

Life begins at 40 ...cards 16-25

I've had a bit of a break in the sending out of the cards due to some family stuff.

Card 16 went off to Zane in Latvia, I don't know Zane, I found his (?) address via the Sendsomething site, I just asked for a random address, the fact that it gave me someone in Latvia was just an added bonus!

Card 17 I sent to Patty from Justletterrip in Virginia in the USA. I've been following Patty's blog for a while.

Card 18 went to Carla at 365letters in Texas USA. Another blog about letters and mail.

 Number 19 I sent to Missivemaven also in the USA, who has lots of lovely links on her blog.

Card 20 went to the Realwall
in the UK which sadly hasn't been updated for a along time but has lots of interesting stuff to look at.

 Half way through!
I've filled all 40 spots now and I'm even considering sending more as I had a lot of replies on the  Bookcrossing forum to my request to fill 40 spots.

Card 21 was mailed off to Limner from Oh,Write me! I love mail blogs, I can waste a whole morning reading through them!

I love the photo of mailboxes on The Penpal Project's blog! I sent card number 22 to Bev, who hasn't updated her blog for a while but has already let me know she received my postcard!

The next card went to Ohio to The Pen Thief

Melissa in Brooklyn was the recipient of card number 24, she has a blog at Viva Snail Mail

And card number 25 I sent to herchelle a lovely Bookcrosser I know in Canada.

I need to buy more stamps so I can send off some more cards, but I also need to mail Christmas cards as well so it might be January before I get the rest in the mail.