It's been way too long!

I didn't realize that it's been over a month since I last posted in here. The good news is that school is officially over and done. Now it's onto job hunting and hopefully I'll find a job quickly.

I've now reached 550 sent postcards! I feel like all I've done in the last 24 hours is send official postcards (and of course some to my wonderful pen friends!) I've sent 14 official postcards in the last 24 hours. Awesome! I'm way behind on scanning in received postcards though. Hopefully I can get caught up this week.

I also want to do a post with all my postcards with my private collection, but I haven't had a chance to do that either. Another project for this week!

Almost to 500...

On my main account (vonxblood), I am close to 500 sent postcards!!!! I'm at 497 so only three more postcards to go. It seems like a lot, but not compared to other users who have been on postcrossing forever. I'd love to be one of the top senders for the USA. It would help if I stopped having my postcards expire though. Oh well. I still love it as much as I did when I started over two years ago!

Oh and I just have to give a shout out to all my awesome pen friends who read this. Thank you for being so wonderful and for sending me awesome postcards or folded cards. It totally makes my day!

If anyone from Washington reads this or if anyone on my blog knows any postcrosser from here, let them know that there is a meet up on April 9th. They can check it out on the forums for more info.

Yay! Mail!

Today, I received a ton of mail! Yay! I had 9 postcards in my mailbox. Finally!

The 9 postcards breakdown like this:

Thank you postcard = 1 (original official postcard was lost so I sent a second)
Pen friends = 3
Officials = 5

Some of the officials took forever to get here and the users did send them right after they got my address. One from Lithuania took 75 days to get to me! It was postmarked on November 11th, 2010. Crazy. I wonder why it got held up for so long, but at least it got to me!

I'm glad I finally got some mail. Hopefully this trend continues.

Slow mail.

It seems that mail has been unusually slow during and even after the holidays. I've barely gotten any mail the last two days - no official or pen friend postcards. Also, it seems to be taking my official postcards an awful long time to reach their destinations. I love writing out postcards so this makes me sad. I sent a few messages on the forum out to some people that want postcard pals. Then I logged into my second account. I haven't used it for months because I really only want to concentrate on my main official account. I figured it would be ok to send a few postcards out to people from that account. I have it set on inactive so I won't receive postcards on that account. I just wanted to send some postcards out today! I actually drove them up to the drive up mailbox at the post office on my way to pick my husband up at the ferry. I hope they make people smile. It made me feel better. I hope that when I wake up tomorrow some of my official postcards have been registered so I can send more.

Oh and I bought more postcards from zazzle.com today and my order that I placed last week showed up today. I'm very pleased with my new postcards. What can I say? I'm addicted.

Buying more postcards... what else am I going to do with my money?

I can't resist going to zazzle.com to see if they have any sales because of course if they have sales, I'll be tempted to buy more postcards. Are they having a sale? Yes. 50% off postcards. Could I resist? NOPE. I ordered 10 different designs, four of which were ones that I had uploaded. Some of the ones I designed I'll send to pen friends, some I'll use as official postcards. It'll be interesting to see how they are when I get them. I'm tempted to buy more since it's such a great deal and the sale ends on Thursday.

Speaking of my pen friends, I think I need to buy some postcards specifically for them. I hate using the cards I bought for official postcards to send to them. I know it probably sounds stupid, but I want separate postcards for officials and for my pen friends. I'll probably start working on that next month when I can hit some stores again.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have the energy to post some of the postcards I've received for my private collection.

It took me awhile to decide to do this, but a few weeks ago I put a request on my postcrossing profile that says:

"I am also looking for some pen friends in either the U.S., UK or Europe. People who I can just exchange postcards with randomly, but who will also randomly send me postcards back. Please message me if you have the same or similar interests as me. Thanks!"

I figured that with how many postcards I send and receive, I'd get a message from someone, right? Nope. Nothing. I wonder if my wording or something offended people. I'm not against pen friends from other countries; I just seem to have better luck sending and receiving to those countries.

There are a couple of nice women I randomly exchange postcards with. One of them is more into swapping where I get some of those wonderful old west postcards and I send her postcards that she likes off of my sent list. It works well. I just know that they're busy and I need more people that I can randomly exchange postcards with. Sending mail makes me really happy and I really haven't wanted to get really involved with the postcrossing forum again since I want pen friends, not random postcards from people.

Tonight I decided to put a post on the forum asking for postcard pen friends. I replied to a few different people who are also looking for pen friends. A few live in the US too and I heard back from one user in the Netherlands who plans on writing me ASAP. I'm excited! I hope I hear back from more people soon. Sending mail seems to make me feel better and happier lately so I'll probably have to go buy more stamps and postcards, but that's fine.

Where are my postcards?

While I do prefer sending postcards to receiving them, I still do like to receive postcards. For whatever reason, I do not seem to be getting a lot of postcards and the difference between my sent and received postcards is growing. I now have 398 sent postcards and only 372 received postcards. I know it's normal to have a few more sent than received, but a difference of 26 postcards is a lot. I have no idea what is going on. I hope people's postcards aren't getting lost on their way to me.

I also seem to be running into the problem of expired postcards. Right now I have six expired postcards. I had seven expired postcards earlier this week, but my replacement card made it to the user and was registered after 86 days of traveling. Two of the users seem to have stopped using postcrossing altogether, I have a replacement postcard sent out to another user and the three are all in China so I'm waiting until it's been at least 80 days before I sent replacement postcards. It's frustrating. It seems like I keep getting users who sign up and then only participate for a little bit before quitting and don't delete their profile or anything. I understand that postcrossing isn't for everyone or that other things may come up preventing a user from participating, but please don't ruin it for everyone else, you know?

On a happier note, I ordered another batch of postcards from Zazzle.com and I was much happier with the result. I ordered nine different designs and only didn't like one of them. I just wish that when I requested a new address, it would be for a user who wants a Christmas postcard! Waiting until December to send these pretty postcards out is driving me crazy. I just hope they make people smile.

Favorite of the week

I recently added "anything related to Christmas" to my favorites list on my profile and I received a lovely postcard from a user in Germany. It still makes me smile.


DE-713457

I did it again....

I ended up ordering more postcards over the weekend. I couldn't help myself. I had to order James (my husband) a book for school from Amazon.com so I ordered a book of postcards for myself too. That was on Saturday. On Sunday, I was browsing sites looking for cute cat cards and Christmas cards and ended up going on Zazzle.com. I've ordered there before and the cards are fantastic quality, but are super expensive so I try not to order from there unless I don't have a choice. Well.... Yeah, I ended up ordering some Christmas postcards and some cat postcards. I couldn't help myself. There are more I want to order, but I am going to try and hold off until next month. They should be shipping my postcards in the next day or so. I'm excited... and of course I want to buy more!

Yesterday, I came home to six new postcards so that was nice after a long day at school. One of them was a cute Christmas postcard that I will have to post in here after I scan it in.

I love postcards and postcrossing!

Favorites day!

I'm now able to send 15 postcards at a time which is awesome. Of course waiting for them to get registered can still be frustrating! I'm trying not to buy anymore postcards because I have so many as it is. I want to buy some Christmas/holiday postcards to send out during December. I'll hopefully have the money to do it in November.

I've received some awesome official postcards and here are some of my favorites!


US-843203 Lewis and Clark on the Lower Columbia River, 1905. This will be going in my private collection.


IT-102531 My first Coca-Cola postcard! Yay!


CA-125352 This was sent to me by another mother and it was her first postcrossing postcard sent out.


NL-434868 My first rubber ducky postcard (also my favorite color, dark pink!) and it was also her first postcrossing postcard sent out.


FI-906454 I just thought this was simple and beautiful.


IS-9720 My first postcard from Iceland. So beautiful. Would love to go someday.

Long week...

It's been a very long week and I've been feeling somewhat down too. I want to send more postcards! Sending postcards cheers me up. I've sent six this week and now I have to wait for more cards to get registered so I can send more. I've thought about opening my profile back up for private swaps, but that's really not the same as official cards.


Bah.

Private collection

When I was on vacation, we went to The High Desert Museum. It was so cool. They had this huge section on the settling of the Old West/Wild West and it was amazing. I am now totally hooked on anything related to the settling of the Wild West. I hope postcrossers that live in the US can help me out if they have postcards relating to that subject. I put a request on my profile and have had some users respond to cards that I have favorited so I'm feeling pretty hopeful. I found some postcards on our adventure the other day. I'll be posting cards like that in here and I need to put them in an online album so everyone can see them.


This lovely postcard was sent to me in a private swap.
Scorched Lightning - This Minneconjoux Sioux was named Scorched Lightning. Note the magnificent string of large bear claws around his neck. The bear was held in reverence among Northern Plains Tribes and admired for its great strength and courage.



I bought this one myself.
The Beaver Family - Sampson, Louise, and Leah Beaver are dressed in a combination of indigenous and European clothing and accessories. They are a family of the Stoney Nation, who live near the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Photo taken in 1907.


Another one I bought myself.
Hanging Meat to Dry - This Crow woman from the Great Plains hangs meat out to dry. Once the meat is dry, it will be mixed with fat and berries to become a dietary staple called pemmican. The meat is stored for use over the winter months. Photo taken in 1905 or 1906.

Postcards and adventures

When I went to buy stamps on Tuesday, there ended up being a huge line at the post office so I decided to order them online instead. I think they'll be here today, but it's not a big deal if they're not.

After that, I went to my favorite drug store on the island. They sell so many wonderful postcards. (I actually went there for something else, but who can resist postcards?) I stocked up on some favorites that I was almost out of and bought some new ones that I couldn't resist because I thought they were either cool, interesting or funny. I can't wait to send them out!

When I got back from my errands, my husband suggested that we go out on an adventure since I start school again next week. We bundled our daughter up and headed out to the Olympic Peninsula. So beautiful. We ended up going out to the Hoh Rain Forest since neither of us had ever been there before. Wow. Amazing. That area is just so awe inspiring. We found this great store called Peak 6. They sell hiking and camping gear as well as souvenirs. I found some awesome Native American postcards for my private collection (I would have bought some to send on postcrossing, but they were 75 cents a piece!) and one that featured the wild cats of Washington so I bought those since I hadn't seen that postcard before. My husband and I ended up with new winter jackets, Native American jewelry and our daughter chose a stuffed husky for herself.

Today, I need to head out to see if I can find a specific postcard that a user wants in a trade. I think I know where I can find it, but we'll see. There are only three stores in could be in and two of them are within minutes of where I live.

Back from vacation!

I was on vacation from September 5th to September 11th. I bought soooooo many postcards while I was down there. I couldn't help myself. There were so many beautiful ones to chose from. I was able to use the Postcrossing website from my phone so I actually sent some users directly from where we were. It made me happy to send postcards while I was on vacation. I have extras to send to other users now too.

Anyway, that's all I have. I'll hopefully have some new postcards to post soon. I need to buy some more USA postcard stamps too. I'll hopefully be able to do that tomorrow.

Postcards, postcards, postcards

This week, I bought postcards on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Like I said, obsessed much? I definitely buy way more postcards than I can ever send out. There's something about postcards that I've always loved. I like them better than letters because you get a picture and a short note from wherever the person is. I used to buy them on trips all the time, but stopped after awhile. Now that I have a purpose for cards, I have to buy them wherever I go. I send some to friends and family when I travel, but I reserve most for postcrossing.

I finally scanned in and uploaded my received postcards. I had 40 of them to scan in. Yikes. I usually don't wait that long, but I just got really far behind with school and everything.

I also scanned in the postcards I bought. I only do that for cards I buy in bulk because I know it's nice for users who can't scan their cards in.

It's been awhile...

It's been awhile since I updated this. I've been super busy with school and taking care of my 7 and 1/2 month old daughter so this obviously wasn't a priority.

I've decided against posting every received card in here. If people really want to see my received cards, they can go to my postcrossing profile and look at them. I figure I'll use this to talk about my obsession with all things related to postcards and postcrossing!

I swear, I can't go anywhere without buying postcards! Last Thursday, my husband, daughter and I went to Hurricane Ridge which is part of the Olympic National Park. They of course had lots of postcards to choose from so I bought some. I wanted to buy more, but they're more expensive than other places (50 cents a card) so I only got the ones I really liked. Then on Sunday, we all drove up to Neah Bay and Cape Flattery. When we stopped in Port Angeles at Safeway for something to drink, I found more postcards so I quickly bought some. I've scanned these in so when I send them to people, I can upload them on postcrossing. I don't upload everything I buy though. Only the postcards I buy in multiples or spend a lot of money on. I'm trying not to buy too many because I have so many to send out! My mother-in-law buys me postcards when she travels so I have postcards from other places to send out as well.

I also went and bought stamps today. I think I'm going to order more online so I can get some cool regular mail stamps. I wish international postcard stamps weren't so expensive!

First Entry into Postcrossing Blog Land

I've been a part of postcrossing.com for 592 days (as of this posting.) I love sending and receiving mail. I always try to send a card that is on the user's requested or favorites list. I hope that when someone gets my card, it puts a smile on their face because when I get a card, it puts a smile on my face.

For the last few months I've been scanning and uploading my received cards onto flickr 1 and flickr 2. Since I've already scanned and posted all of those, I'm not going to go through all my cards and post them on here. Starting today, I will start posting my new received cards on here for those who are interested in seeing them.

For more about me, feel free to check out my postcrossing profile here.