I Take It Back, I Do NOT Want Goats!

My Gran has a large garden every year.  And just down from that garden, she used to keep chickens.  We live across the street from a horse pasture/stables, so I see horses every day.  Just down the road not even 2 miles, our neighbors have a herd of dairy cows.  So I see cows every day too.  I used to think "It would be so nice to own a couple of goats."  Right?  I could sell the milk, or use it to make soap and lotions and sell those.  You know, going back to the land and homesteading and all that.  It seemed like a good idea.  I mean, look at this face and how cute they are!

Source

WANT!

Until I found this.... 

...I think we will just go pet the goats at Zoo Atlanta's Children's Petting Zoo and call it done.  :)

USPS

Well, obviously. :)

I thought you'd like to see my local P.O.

Isn't it cute!  I never use that blue box.  I usually have a package that needs postage, or I check my box (yes, I did finally get one!), or I just like to drop off letters at the counter and wish the ladies working there (who have come to expect me a minimum of 3x a week) a good day.

I tried to find when this branch opened, but Google isn't cooperating.  I know it has been in existence at least since the 80s, because I can remember it being a community fixture when I was a little girl and we moved back here from Virginia.  I'll have to ask next time I'm in (probably tomorrow) if the workers know the date it was built.

I did find this section of USPS Facts on the USPS website (go here for the whole thing):

**********

A Day in the Life of the U.S. Postal Service

Each day, the Postal Service picks up, processes and delivers millions of letters and packages. No single operation in the world comes close to this level of connectivity to so many households and businesses. Here’s just ONE day in the life of the United States Postal Service (figures are averages):

215 million — revenue received, in dollars

157 million — dollars paid to postal employees in salaries and benefits

528 million — number of mailpieces processed and delivered

22 million — average number of mailpieces processed each hour

366,000 —average number of mailpieces processed each minute

6,100 — average number of mailpieces processed each second

226.7 million — pieces of First-Class Mail processed and delivered

262.4 million — pieces of Advertising Mail processed and delivered

727,167 —number of packages picked up through Package Pickup

4.3 million — number of miles driven by letter carriers and truck drivers

7,753 — number of letter carriers who deliver mail entirely on foot — The USPS Fleet of Feet

130,592 — number of address changes processed

2,160 — number of addresses added to our delivery network

1 million - number of peple who visit usps.com

809,210 — dollar amount of online stamp and retail sales at usps.com

1.6 million — amount of money spent on postage for Click-N-Ship labels

44.1 million — number of Click-N-Ship labels printed

18,750 — number of passport applications accepted

358,553 — number of money orders issued

1.6 million — dollars spent at Self-Service Kiosks in Post Office lobbies

3.2 million — customers served at more the 31,000 retail locations

0 — tax dollars received for operating the Postal Service

A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation: 152 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With more than 31,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 42nd in the 2012 Fortune 500.

**********

And yet we snail mailers are constantly told that the 238 year old institution is broke, being run into the ground and may soon be extinct.  Hmm.

And speaking of USPS history, I'd really like to go to D.C. and visit the National Postal Museum at the Smithsonian.  Anyone been?

Return To Sender

Nothing makes me sadder in mail adventures than seeing something I sent out weeks ago back in my mailbox with a sticker on it telling me it couldn't get to where I wanted it to go. :(

One time, I sent a letter to a pen pal in Germany, whom I had connected with through social media.  I used the address from her awesome custom stamp and made SURE it was right.  It came back some 2 weeks later, saying it couldn't reach her.  So I sent her a message to double check the address, which was EXACTLY what I had used!  I put it in another envelope, RTS stickers and all, and tried again with the SAME address and she got it 3 days later.  One of those postal mysteries that leaves you scratching your head and going "???!".

And then there is the hassle of convincing people (mostly businesses) who send mail to individuals who no longer live at your address that they should stop sending things addressed to that person.  (I'm looking at you, insurance company!)  I had to physically walk into an office, hand them the stack of mail that had kept arriving weeks after I had made calls to remove my address from their list, and very slowly spell it out for them to STOP. SENDING. THESE.  I think they FINALLY got the message!

I sent out to a pen pal from France a few weeks ago and it came back RTS.  I had her parents address that she had given me as a backup though, and so far I haven't heard anything so maybe she got it and will write back soon.

Do you ever get things returned back to you, readers?  I hope it doesn't happen very often!

Mailboxes

Our poor mailbox.  It has sweetly and patiently stood vigil at the road in front of Gran's house for many years.  It has withstood hail, tornados, scorching summers, several floods, and the baseball bats of stupid punk teenagers who don't have anything worthwhile to do on a Saturday night than destroy other people's property.

It's so pitiful, I don't even have the heart to show you a photo of it.  The door is missing, the flag rusted into place ages ago, and the numbers are broken and falling off of the post.

Of course, now that the weather has a few nice days thrown in, we are looking to fix it up replace it with a pretty new one.*  This got me thinking on some designs and I thought I would share some fantastic mailbox photos I found around the interwebs.  :)

For those who just can't let go of technology...

For the Hobby Enthusiast:

For the Geek following their Fandom...

For the Northerner who is sick of the snow and a bit stir crazy...

*Have you seen how much some of the prettier ones go for at places like Home Depot and Lowes??  $400+!  God Save The Queen, I could send each of my pen pals a letter a week for that! (Maybe.)
And I am still making up my mind on the "to get a P.O. Box or to not get a P.O. Box" question.
How's the state of your mailbox, my dear reader?

LWA, Long Letters and the Library

I've already mentioned the Letter Writer's Alliance a few times here on TMP, but I couldn't pass up the chance to include them in my postal themed A-Z!!!

I've been a member since 13 September, 2011!

I got a letter from Donovan just last week and I LOVE her sense of humor!  I have to write back ASAP.  My time is pretty spliced at the moment, and if I'm to succeed at some of my major long term goals, I have to acknowledge that MOST of my time in an average day isn't my own, at least for a while.

But I am still making time for the things that matter to me.  I'm still working hard, knowing that while I will never be a perfect person, I can perfect some of the facets of my life to be better versions of themselves.  Things like... writing back in a timely manner, for example!

Are you an LWA member?  I've met a few pen pals via LetterMo who are!  If you are not, you should definitely consider it.  A lifetime membership costs less than a movie ticket.  Check out the blog HERE.

Now on to the second part: long letters.  Am I the only one who can't bring myself to send a postcard sometimes because there just isn't room to do the correspondence I want to convey enough justice?  Please tell me I'm not the only person who habitually, after filling up both sides of a blank card's inside, carries over to a second 7th or 8th page??  Granted, a lot of times my additional "pages" are cut down to the size of the card, so they aren't full sheets.  But still.

Of course, a logical train of thought would be that if I didn't let so much time elapse between letters, I wouldn't have so much to try and write about all in one sitting, and therefore the letter would be shorter than the paperback novels unauthorized autobiographies pleasantly lengthy epistles I end up penning and trying to process through the mail system within the 3 oz limit.  It may be that I'm just frugal with my stamp money.  After all, it's limited and strictly budgeted, so I try to get as much news and pieces of life to the recipient as the $0.46 allows!  Maybe that's the real reason about the "doesn't send postcards".  I'm more apt to send a blank postcard enclosed with a 3 page letter to a pen pal than to send the postcard by itself.

Anyway.
Here is a fantastic children's book that we love called "The Long, Long Letter."

It's very cute.  Go grab it at a library near you.  Don't know where your closest one is?  Use this handy Locator!  :)
The Dog River Library is one of my favorite places to write letters.  It's quiet (well, duh!), and a lot of times I use their copier to keep a copy of my outgoing (see my explanation of this in yesterday's post.) because it ends up being cheaper than having to continually buy new cartridges for my ink guzzling printer at home.  It's also a great place to write letters, because I'm an avid reader and a lot of my pen pals are too, so they are always asking what I've read recently or ask me to recommend favorite books.  Rather convenient to simply look in my bag at what I've just checked out or am returning! ;)

Source

Did you honestly think that I could go more than 5 blog posts without working in a reference to Jane Austen?  Silly goose!  Have a lovely combination of the "Keep Calm" motto and Mr. Darcy.  Yes, I know it, I spoil you rotten.  You're welcome. :)
Do you write short or long letters?  Do you love getting long letters?  Or not?  Why?
Comment away, dear readers!

Keeping It All Organized

Some of you have asked how I keep my past correspondence.  Well, I'll be honest with you, there is a LOT of it!!! Which is awesome!  But ... challenging... sometimes! :)
I keep a photocopy of my outgoing letters, because then it creates a complete conversation and I don't have to try to remember whether I told so-and-so such-and-such and repeat old stories or bore them to death.  I just skim the last 2 or 3 letters and continue the thread. :)  Who says people with poor memories can't find a system that works! It took a few trials and errors, but eventually I found one that I like.

I took advantage of a fantastic back-to-school sale at Office Depot last fall and got a mess of these:

Wilson Jones 3 ring binder in Bright Pink

And some of these:

And now I have this:

The tabs are removable, so when I have to change the letters,
it's really easy.  If things keep up like they have been, I'll end
up with a binder for each letter by the end of the summer!!!

I put the pen pal's name, and a general description
of their location.  Obviously for the USA, city and
then state.  For international it's a bit different,
but you get the idea.  The tabs change easily if I
have to update them due to people moving. :)

Of course, "organized" is a relative term, since I have this
pile and another one (not pictured) of replied letters to
file.  At least I can say I do have everything more or less
in one general location amongst my belongings! :)

How do you keep your letters, my readers?  Boxes?  Binders like mine?

Ink

Some of my absolute favorite inks (and ink pens) to write letters with.....

Excellent for historic character letters.

I don't own this inkwell yet, but I want one.

Good for writing and drawing.

The "Blue" is the one I use the most.  Hobby Lobby has
them for sale individually.  I like the "Teal" too. 

As with the one above, I don't actually own this
peacock glass inkwell.  But I want it. :)

Perhaps not "accurate" for historic character correspondence.
But sooo pretty. :)

Again, less practical- but so fun!!

Swirl click ball-point pens by The Write Dudes

Gelly Roll Stardust pens by Sakura

For dark papers.  I like to use this on a dark blue shimmer finished
cardstock that has been cut to the size of my card, when I need a
couple more "pages" for my letter.  I'm long winded. :)

Pretty and smooth gel ink in very bright colors.

Same as above, but slightly different feel.

I usually keep the pink one and give the
purple one to a friend.

What inks and pens are your favorites to write letters with, my Loves?

Hand Cancelled Post

You know what I love?

I love when the friendly people at my local Post Office use the round stamp and cancel stuff by hand if I ask them to.  (It was one of the LetterMo achievement badges too!)

It's a good idea to do this if you have an envelope that could get damaged by the sorting machines, but sometimes I ask them to do it just because it looks way better and completes the work of art that the envelope was intended to be.  It looks especially nice on the historic pieces, which I unfortunately don't have any photos of at the moment.  I do have a photo of this piece that went to France, though...

And the ones that I receive are super cool too.  Like this one from Budapest, Hungary:

Do you ever have your letters hand cancelled?

Delightful Desk Accessories

Letter writing stuff I would buy if I won the lottery.  This stuff is just made of awesome.

A desk I'd want, once I have my own house again:

Go HERE to see more images, including the inside!

Decadent Stationery:

Hand engraved peacock feather cards from Crane Stationers.
 I think I even featured them (or something very like them)
before on TMP, but they are so lovely, they deserve repeating!

Reproduction RMS Titanic stationery and matching envelopes!
You can get them here.

Pretty much the entire Josephine Wall collection from Leanin' Tree Stationers.  Here are a couple of my favorites:

I also found this fabulous Peacock Desk Set:

(Available at Sears and Michael's)

Confession: This post was kind of hard to come up with.  Totally phoning it in.  But tomorrow's is easy: all about Envelopes! :)

Backlog

When life has practiced its pitching arm and starts slinging things at you, one after the other (not all bad!  A lot of it good!), and when a whole community of wonderful people are sending you lovely letters to fill up the mailbox... this happens! :)

I've had a rotten cold the last 2 days because of the pollen, so that has also kept me from attacking the backlog stack with alacrity.  But never fear!  I'll get caught up hopefully by the end of the week! :)
How do you handle your letters when you get behind?

Addresses

Happy First Day of the A-Z! :)

I'm going to start my Snail Mail themed challenge off with a few words about mailing addresses- how I have gotten them from pen pals, how I handle my own, etc.

Internet Databases
First, the LetterMo event in February was just spectacular!  I made so many new friends, reconnected with old ones, and generally had a ball.  By participating in LetterMo and logging into the forums as a member, I could find pages and pages of biographies with addresses of people to write to.  The rules are the same as any other social setting: only post your personal info if you are comfortable with people seeing it and using it to write to you.  Some participants didn't want to post their stuff for the world to see, so we had the option of sending them a friend request and private message first to introduce ourselves.

LetterMo introduced me to the use of a site called Postable.  It's completely secure and encrypted.  You send a link which takes whomever to a short form.  They fill in the info and TA DAA!  Now you can send out Christmas cards, graduation/wedding/birthday/your cat's baptism/Marvel comic book reading party/whatever invitations with ease!  I really love mine and it has been super useful.

Another online tool I have used to meet pen pals is a site called Maarten's Snail Mail Pen Pals Online.  I found it around 2 years ago.  Again, people can list their info if they want to, or they can ask that prospective pen pals email them personally for it first.  I have sent and received some of the most fantastic letters to people from this site.  You can search for pen pals by age, gender, country or state.  The site is updated every few weeks with new and current listings.

Street Address VS P.O. Box
I've been pondering whether I should change over to a Post Office Box for all of my letter writing, instead of my street address.  There is added security in a P.O. Box, as people can't just Google Map it and start knocking on your front door one day.  But to the rest of the world who hopefully aren't weirdo stalkers live really far away, I think a street address is like a little snapshot of you and your corner of the globe and is therefore more fun than a P.O. Box.  I don't know.  I DO know that I tend to over-think things way too often, and this is probably one of those times/things, but I just can't seem to make up my mind.  What's your opinion, fellow bloggers?  To P.O. Box, or not to P.O. Box??

Posting Photos (especially concerning other people's addresses)
One thing that has come up often in discussion among those of us who not only Snail Mail, but then Blog about said snail mailing, is that if you are going to post photos of your incoming and outgoing mail, even if you care nothing about hiding your own address for privacy, for Pete's sake, hide the other person's info!  Some of us cover over the addresses with a scrap of paper, others take the photo before adding the info, and still others use image editing software to cover the addresses.  I do the last one, like so:

Other Fun Address Stuff
Two of the longest street names in the world:
Bolderwood Arboretum Ornamental Drive, in the UK
Northeast Kentucky Industrial Parkway, in Kentucky, US

Arguably the longest town name in the world:
Llanfairpwllgwynllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, in Wales

Two "longest place names" of the world (as found here):
Tetaumatawhakatangihangakouauaotamateaurehaeaturipukapihimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu, a hill in New Zealand

Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahintarayutthayamahadilokphopnopparatrajathaniburiromudomrajaniwesmahasatharnamornphimarnavatarnsathitsakkattiyavisanukamprasit, the official (native) full name of Bangkok

Whether your address is an Avenue, Street, Boulevard, Road, Route, Drive or anything in between, I think it's simply amazing that a letter gets from one place in the world, to the intended recipient- very often on the other side of this planet we call home!  I'm not even sure what's the furthest away I have gotten a letter from.  Probably Australia.  But I've received some from China and Hungary too!  What's the furthest away you've ever gotten mail from, readers?

RISE AND SHINE, PEOPLE!

God Save the Queen, I have SO FREAKING MUCH to do this week, and it's going to be AWESOME!  More details after this little gem...

... I think that about the birds outside, too!!!

So, CGtY is officially 5, which means she's promoted herself in her make believe play to CEO and Supreme Ruler of DisneyPrincessBarbieFairyLand.  She's a gracious monarch, though.  She lets me be  in charge of the Mermaids, and CGtE is now the Head of the Department of Entertainment (a promotion from last year's Lead Servant and Scapegoat).  He and I can't help but agree that the pay is lousy (we are rewarded for our loyalty with more and bigger messes to clean up), but the creative license perks are pretty sweet (I can make the Mermaids stage a rebellion and flood DisneyPrincessBarbieFairyLand unless Her Majesty meets their demands.  Like, eating all of her dinner or getting her pajamas on, say.)  Her subjects (who, among the masses, include Cinderella, Rapunzel, Merida, 5 of those Ty animals with the freakishly big eyes, and about a dozen Littlest Pet Shop critters that hurt worse than Legos when I step on them in the dark) adore her and have good cause to place their (inanimate) faith in her ability to rule; there hasn't been a flood yet.  Unless you count the bathtub, which we don't- that's Her Majesty treating them all to a vacation at the beach.

Anyway, yeah, back to my metric ton of stuff to do this week:

Tomorrow is a full day of finishing the Spring Cleaning.  Every blessed thing in the house has been disturbed, dusted, wiped down, disinfected and rearranged.  I wish I had taken a photo of the area under the stairs before I redid it, to show the difference.  It looks amazing now!  I still have the dining room and downstairs bathroom to complete, as well as detail mopping the kitchen.  (Detail mopping- on my knees with a cloth and bucket, a la Cinderella.  Good time for prayer and worship, that!)
Aside from those couple of things, most of the stuff was done last week and just needs "touchups".  Well, except for my room, which always needs to be done- but no one is going to see it, as it's in a permanent state of reinvention so it doesn't really figure in.  And I'll have to repeatedly pick up the trail of toys that the CGs strew behind them as they go.  Cleaning a house with young kids in it is like trying to file and organize papers on a desk while a fan blows on them.  Or brushing your teeth while you are eating Oreos. Ok, no, ew.  The first thing.  The second one may be an effective analogy, but it's still a really gross mental image!

Tuesday evening, some friends of ours will be visiting from Leeds, UK.  I can't wait to see them!  It's going to be fantastic!  Later in the week I'm going to be meeting another friend I haven't seen in a long while for a late dinner, so I'm looking forward to that as well.  Nothing is better than good food and good friends gathering to visit! :)

Also this week, I've got to solidify my posts for the Annual A-Z!  I'm doing a "Snail Mail" theme (well, of course I am!  What else would it have been!) and I still have to come up with a few of the trickier ones.  You know.  Q, V, X, Y.  Surprisingly, U, W and Z were all easy ones.

Lucy Jane has been hibernating for too long and has to get busy on some stock pieces for the upcoming Hydrangea Fest!  Only 8 ish weeks to go!  Yikes!  More giraffes and hippos and sea turtles and stuff to make.  The CGs think it's done by magic.  Oh, they've seen the machine going, and they have seen the process from start to finish.  But usually the main work is done while they are at school or asleep, so one minute it's a pile of fabric and then >POOF!< there is a shelf full of cuddly plush animals (that, ironically and maddeningly, they are not allowed to touch and/or play with! LOL!)  I'm making them some of their own.  CGtE hasn't decided what he wants yet, but CGtY is painstakingly choosing the fabric for her custom unicorn.  Someone made a comment somewhere- the cobbler's children being barefoot... or something along those lines. Well, fine.  Now my CGs will own Lucy Jane made Funky Friends.  I can't wait to show Pauline (the pattern maker) when I get them done. :)
(Just so we are clear, it's not as if the CGs don't have a bunch of loved plushies already.  They do.  But somehow my love of sewing Funky Friends and my compulsory need to be a sometimes indulgent parent seem to have collided.)

And I'm working on my backlog of letters to answer.  I have it down to around 30 now.  This past week was awesome and brought letters in from as far away as Hungary, plus a stack from all around the US.  I am loving the new friendships I have made through LetterMo, and the continued correspondence from long-established pen friends.  It's a wonderful and important part of my daily life to send and receive letters!

Then Friday I'm hosting a 31 Gifts party!  I LOVE 31 stuff.  I have a demi purse in "peacock paisley" (now retired, sadly) that I use ALL the time, but I have my eye on that Cindy design, and that drool-inducing Organista bag... !

Ok... I've rambled on long enough!  Time to crash in the bed and tackle that list of awesomeness in the morning at 6 a.m.!  Goodnight, my dears!

Seafood Noms

Any seafood lovers out there?  Show of hands.  I see you over there, Florida! ;)
I wanted to share a recipe with you that I made up on the spot the other day.
This will make 8 - 10 servings.

Get 3 boxes of this:

Some of these (thawed).  They are the little ones; Mediterranean sea scallops, not bay scallops.
(I got the frozen bag and thawed and used about half- ish.  Maybe 2 cups worth?)

A package of this (chunk style):

And a box of this:

Prepare the pasta according to the directions.  While it's going, prepare the shrimp according to the directions.  When the shrimp is almost opaque, but not quite, add in the scallops and crab and cook another 5 or 6 minutes.  Drain the pasta, put it in a serving dish and mix in the seafood.  Be sure you get all of that lime sauce in!

This tastes good with cheddar biscuits, salad, and green beans as side dishes.
If you make it for yourself, let me know how you liked it! :)

A Swinging St. Patrick's Day Weekend

It's been a great St. Patrick's Day weekend over here!

I spent Friday night in the company of many, many friends, tearing up the dance floor at the monthly GA Tech swing dance!!!  I danced from 8-Midnight and then some of us went to the local Steak N Shake until around 2 ish.  I crashed in bed at around 2:45, with sore feet, aching muscles and a huge grin on my face.  That's the most social fun I've had in a while and I am so looking forward to next month's shindig! :) :) :)

I clean up rather cutely! Though, this pic was taken
before I stopped by to see a friend at a salon and
wound up getting a bangs trim and curls done! :)

Here's a short video- I didn't take many photos or movies CAUSE I WAS DANCING! :)

Yesterday, Mum and I ran general errands around town and then went and got our nails done.  A rare treat for me, that I thank her for!  I took this photo of my "dressed up for St. Patrick's Day" self whilst waiting for her to get done with her mani-pedi:

Green shirt and green nails (Kiwi Kiss by Salon Perfect),
 plus the shamrock necklace that the Bestie gave me for Christmas!
No chance I was getting pinched! LOL

Then we met up with some friends at the Douglasville Irish Bred Pub.  I'm completely temperance.  I don't drink anything alcoholic whatsoever.  But their food is wonderful!  I had the Blarney Burger and sweet potato fries.

Source

There were Celtic dancers doing Riverdance type musical stampeding. (I can't imagine what it sounded like downstairs!  It's a historic building, so I'm fairly certain it may have seemed like the ceiling was going to cave in!) Sorry, I wasn't able to get a photo of the dancers.  Too many people in the way and they were jumping around so much, the camera couldn't focus. Oh, and there was also this guy:

So grainy- but better than no photo at all, I suppose!

We stuck around until around 9 ish and then headed home so I could write a few reply letters (the backlog is stacking up! I also still need to finish taking photos of the incoming for the Flikr albums). After Friday's shenanigans, it was a good idea (however boring) to go to bed at a decent hour.

Today has thus far been spent quietly, catching up on the blogs I read; writing letters, posts, and to-do lists for the coming week; and getting my game plan down for making the most out of the hours that will compose tomorrow.  Because I have a metric ton of stuff to do that must get done if all of my other plans are to ever happen.  (This is what procrastination does to you, kids.)  I have one of those B12 energy shot drinks on hand if I end up needing it, but I'm hoping to be able to get the right amount of sleep tonight so that I won't have to open it.  Kind of nice to have a back up plan, though.  Those dust bunnies better live it up now.  They'll be obliterated in the morning. :)

I hope you have had a marvelous Green Weekend, my dears!  Don't forget about the giveaway happening on Friday!  See you soon!