Tuesday, June 25, 2013

So what the heck have I been up to the past 3 months?

Ignoring my blog for starters.  
Here's the short version:

Went to see Maroon 5!!


Saw one daughter off to Senior Prom



And the other to the 8th grade formal


Attended an 8th grade Promotion



 and a High School Graduation


Spent time with  my crazy family!


And sent and received lots of cool mail





Sunday, March 24, 2013

Making the switch to Bloglovin

Since Google reader will be leaving us soon I made the switch over to Bloglovin.  Follow me there:

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Luckily when you sign up over there you can import all the blogs you follow through google over there.  It did miss a few but for the most part it worked fine.  

The one thing I don't particularly like is that when you are on your home page it only lists the blogs that have unread entries and then you can only see those unread ones.  I like being able to see all the entries for a particular blog in case I wanted to go back to a previous post.  

You can go to your "following" page and click on a blog to see all the posts but it's extra steps.  Something to get used to I guess.  




Saturday, March 2, 2013

A Month of Letters Weeks 3 & 4

I did it!  I completed the Month of Letters challenge.

I sent out a total of 58 pieces of mail. 

Didn't do to well at photographing it though.  Here are a couple envelopes I made/decorated...




I connected with some great people and hopefully we will continue to correspond long after this challenge!  






Thursday, February 21, 2013

Zentangle

A couple years ago I came across Zentangle.  I don't remember how or why.  After checking it out for a while I decided it would be fun to try.


So back in November of 2011 my daughter and I took a basic class at our local craft store.  I loved it.  I never felt I could draw but I was able to do the things they were showing us in class.  


And like many things I get into I came home all excited, tried a few more tangles.  Drew this:





And promptly "forgot" about doing much with it again for about a year!  I dug my sketch book back out in December of last year and did this:





I decided at that time that I wanted to try to do it more regularly and get better at it.  So I bought myself a 2013 tangle a day calendar.  I love it but of course I am WAY behind on doing it daily.  




I started out good 



Did a few I liked and a few I didn't.



And stalled out around January 9th!!  

I'm working on getting back to it.

I wish I could find a balance and learn to give time to all the things I enjoy instead of obsessing about one for weeks or months and ignoring the others.  




Saturday, February 16, 2013

A Month Of Letters: Week 2


I'm still in it.  Getting out at least one or two items a day.  But I still feel "behind".  I have a bunch of things I need to respond to and I always feel like I'm too slow getting back to people.  

I really need to be in the right mood to write a letter.  I always have good intentions of sitting and responding but then when it comes time I don't always feel like I'm in the right state of mind.

I only photographed my incoming this week.  I keep forgetting about the outgoing.  Well, I forget the incoming too but at least it's here and I can go back and do it the next day. 


A cool hand made envelope, Large letter Ohio postcard and I just love that heart.  It's the cardboard piece from a box of chocolates that the sender covered it cancelled love and heart stamps and sent as a postcard.




More postcards from a Round Robin.




A Few more from the same Round Robin.  I love that little doggie peeking out the door!




More postcards and a letter from a Month of Letters participant.



Here's the note card that was inside that envelope.  I just love the colors.



And a cute valentine's postcard.  The little folded paper hearts were tucked inside a small envelope attached to the back of the postcard.  So fun!

Now I'm staring into a fun weekend of scholarship applications and financial aid forms! 



Friday, February 8, 2013

A Month of Letters: Week 1


One week has gone by and I've been able to mail something every day!  So far so good.  Well, except for the fact that I didn't always take a photo of what I sent.  But here are the ones I remembered to photograph.
 

 
 
A Rick Springfield postcard to a friend & fellow fan and a birthday postcard to a Lettermo participant.
 
 

 
A couple pen pal letters and 2 postcards.  One to a girl doing a social studies project trying to collect a card from each state. 
 


Two more letters and yes I actually drew that hot air balloon on the envelope.  Not sure how that happened!  LOL 
Five postcards, all with photos taken by yours truly.
 
Here are a few items I received from other Lettermo participants:
Love the envelope!
 
 

 
 
I also received postcards from a Round Robin I'm in this month on the Postcrossing forum
 
 
 
 
Not much but still way more fun than bills and junk!!



Friday, February 1, 2013

Let the Games Begin

 
 
Today is the first day of A Month of Letters and so far so good.  I have two pieces of mail ready to go!  I don't think I'll be updating daily.  Maybe just once a week on Friday.  And for today I don't plan on posting a pic of what I'm sending yet as I don't want the receivers to see before they arrive!
 
In the meantime......
 
I tried my hand at making a few of my own envelopes!  I used a map that was inside a travel guide book I had requested long ago and we never ended up going to that destination.
I also carefully turned a "junk mail" return envelope inside out so the design is on the outside.  I got the idea from the forums on Lettermo.  Very cool.
 





Tuesday, January 29, 2013

2013 Reading List

Ok so I didn't reach my goal in 2012.

Whatever.

I'm trying again in 2013.  This time I'm going for a whole 20 books! 

And I'm gonna do it this time!  So come back to this post (the link will be in the sidebar) or friend me on Goodreads to see my progress. 

1. Playing For Pizza, John Grisham (12/21/12-1/25/13)

2.  A Walk to Remember, Nicholas Sparks (1/25/13-1/31/13)

3. Cosmopolis, Don DeLillo (2/1/13-did not finish) I just couldn't get into it

4Northern Lights, Nora Roberts (2/7/13-3/11/13)

5. Beautiful Creatures, Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl (3/11/13-3/25/13)

6. Clockwork Princess, Cassandra Clare (3/26/13-4/24/13)

7. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky (4/24/13-4/28/13)

8. Beautiful Darkness, Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl (4/29/13-5/15/13)

Currently Reading:

Beautiful Chaos, Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl (5/24/13-


Wednesday, January 23, 2013

One month, 23 Letters



 
I've decided to join the Month of Letters
 
 
It's a challenge for the month of February to mail at least one item for every day the mail runs.  A letter, a postcard, an article...whatever.
 
 
Let me know if you'd like to receive something from me. 
You can find my email on my blogger profile, connect with me on lettermo or input your info on my postable account 





Thursday, January 17, 2013

Pictures, pictures, everywhere!

 

Even before taking photography seriously I loved taking photos and looking through old family photos. 


 
Back in the day when we used film or Polaroids before that, we'd take them, have them printed, throw them in a drawer or box where they'd sit until we dug through them looking for something.

 
 
 

The last time we moved which was about 12 years ago I decided to take on the project of organizing all the prints along with all the ones my mom had laying around. 

 
 
I was going to put them in chronological order and get them all in albums and labeled like the ones you see here:
 
 
 
Then when my grandmother passed away in 2004 and we were going through some of her stuff I ended up taking a trunk full of family photos home to go through.
 
 


Problem is, these photos I have posted here.....they were just taken today.  Yeah, that's how far I've gotten on my project over the past 12 years!!

Not to mention the fact that all the 100's of prints I have in these boxes only date through about mid 2004.  That's when I went digital. 
I'd say I've taken thousands since then.  I didn't have to worry about wasting film.  Now all those sit on my hard drive waiting for something to be done with them.

I always figured I'd have a selection of them printed for each year and add them to the rest so we'd have something to physically hold and look at. 

Now I just feel overwhelmed! 
But I hate that they are just sitting around in boxes!

I'm thinking about getting some of these cases to make it quicker and easier to store them rather than trying to get them all in albums.




I'll feel much better when I dig myself out of this hole.  IF I ever dig myself out!





Friday, January 11, 2013

Going Postal

I know I've mentioned this before but I haven't blogged in so long it bears repeating......I love snail mail!!!

In the past couple of months my love for it has been rekindled.  I'm a member of Postcrossing and have been increasing my activity there, exchanging more postcards, especially in the forum. 

Here are a few I've recently sent out:



And a few I've recently received:


 
I've also found a renewed interest in pen paling.  I've been writing a few women that I found through Postcrossing.  There's also a few other sites I'm thinking about joining. 

Months ago I wrote to someone whose blog about mail I found and I received a letter from her this past week!



My daughter had gotten me a gift card to a local bookstore for my birthday in November and I finally got around to spending it.  I bought this cool book about mail art.





My mail is a bit boring compared to some stuff I've been seeing so I wanted to try my hand at sprucing it up a little.