Package Pals

Hello everybody! I know it's been a long time since my last update, but these past weeks have been so busy. I'm down to my last three days of work, and I've finally done some shopping for my dorm room. :D But that's talk for letters. Today I'm posting to share with you the great package I received from my secret pal in the Package Pals project! Sorry I posted a few days late. Here's what my partner, Maria sent to me.

Some great new stationery! :) I can never have too much stationery!

<3 An adorable owl notepad!

Cute stickers and memosheets!

A new book. :) I haven't had a chance to sit and read it yet, but it sounds
like it's going to be a great read and I'm on a big reading kick right now.
I know what I'll be doing on my first few days after I'm done working.

A greeting card with cat stamps. I don't think I've ever seen a stamp with a cat on it before!

A card and envelope template kit. ^_^

 I've already gotten so much use out of everything Maria sent- everything was perfect, and I couldn't be happier! Thanks both to Maria, my partner and to Shannah for hosting the Package Pals project. <3

June Totals (A Little Late)

I'm a few days behind, as usual, but I figured it was time to come back and post the final results for the month of June. I have to say, I think it's been the busiest (and therefore best) month of incoming mail since I started penpalling last August. Speaking of, it'll be a year next month! :)

Anyway, on Saturday the 29th, three more pieces of mail came in, bumping the total incoming to 36!

Letter from Bri- the first page is type-written! :)

A colorful and creative letter from Elizabeth

A letter from Jessica on beautiful stationery.

I also sent out a package to my new penpal/swap partner, Lauren. However, as I didn't have time to include a letter as I intended, I won't count it as outgoing. Which means my overall Incoming/Outgoing totals were.... 36 (Inc) and 37 (Out)! So not only was it the best for incoming, it was probably the most I've accomplished in outgoing. Great mail month!

All of the incoming mail for June. :D

And somehow, I'm back up to 12 letters to reply to... So, looks like I'll be spending tonight and tomorrow in another letter-writing marathon. Sounds like a fantastic way to spend the firework-less 4th of July to me!

Incoming: 33 Tári, Caddi, Eri, Stephanie, Ashley, Abbye, Gabby, Beth, Laura and Langley, Anastasya, Sandra, Laura, Emily, Shannah, Laura A., Irina, Fab, Kay, Bri, Kandy, Katherine, Beth, Ilaria, Eri, Melanie, Irene, Morrison, Stephanie I., Everett, Karli, Barbara, Shannah, Sam, Bri, Elizabeth, Jessica

Outgoing: 37 Ilaria, Morrison, Shannah, Michi, Eri, Caddi, Stephanie, Tári, Valérie, Elizabeth, Abbye, Yasmeen, Anastasya, Beth , Sara, Sandra, Laura L., Laura A., Stephanie I, Alicja, Fab, Shannah, Bri, Kandy, Kay, Ilaria, Simona, Beth, Romaine, Barbara, Irina, Mel, Shannah, Stephanie, Cazzie, Hannah, Eri

Lots of Outgoing!

Okay, so, as I mentioned yesterday, I had plenty of mail to send out this afternoon- fortunately time did allow for me to take it to the post office on my lunch break. The bad news, though, is that I put all that effort into making the envelopes more attractive than usual, and I took pictures, but I need to go back and edit out everyones' addresses!

So since I don't have pictures, I'll just list what all went out today: Letters to Romaine in Switzerland and Barbara in France, Irina in Russia and Mel here in the United States. I also sent letters to Shannah and Stephanie (both in the States), and included a small surprise with both of them. Two more letters with surprises went out today, to Cazzie in the UK and Eri in Japan. And the penpal journal is on its way to Hannah (UK). And last but certainly not least, today I sent off my package for the Package Pals project, hosted by Shannah over at Write Before Your Eyes. I ended up forgetting to take pictures of it as I packed it in my morning rush before work this morning, which I find regrettable because I loved how everything looked all neatly packaged. No spoilers, though, so I'll end it there! I hope it reaches its destination soon!

Anyway, since I don't currently have any available pictures for the outgoing, I'll share some of the recent incoming.

A first letter from my new penpal Barabra, who found me on Interpals.
I love the sparkly paper it was written on, but the camera on my phone did not.
Status: Reply sent 6/28

On the envelope from Barbara were two of my favorite stamps so far!

Response to my first letter to Karli. :)
Status: Awaiting Reply

Best. Stationery. Ever! That is all.

A letter from Shannah. :)
Status: Reply sent 6/28.

A first letter from my new penpal, Sam, who asked to be penpals
after I signed up for her travelling notebook (included) on the Postcrossing forums.
Status: Awaiting Reply

Now, for totals.

Incoming: 33 Tári, Caddi, Eri, Stephanie, Ashley, Abbye, Gabby, Beth, Laura and Langley, Anastasya, Sandra, Laura, Emily, Shannah, Laura A., Irina, Fab, Kay, Bri, Kandy, Katherine, Beth, Ilaria, Eri, Melanie, Irene, Morrison, Stephanie I., Everett, Karli, Barbara, Shannah, Sam

Outgoing: 37 Ilaria, Morrison, Shannah, Michi, Eri, Caddi, Stephanie, Tári, Valérie, Elizabeth, Abbye, Yasmeen, Anastasya, Beth , Sara, Sandra, Laura L., Laura A., Stephanie I, Alicja, Fab, Shannah, Bri, Kandy, Kay, Ilaria, Simona, Beth, Romaine, Barbara, Irina, Mel, Shannah, Stephanie, Cazzie, Hannah, Eri

A Short Update

Hello! As usual, I'm not keeping up with my mail like I should. I haven't even been taking note of all the incoming/outgoing lately so I've probably forgotten some. :(

But here's what (I think) the current totals are:

Incoming: 32 Tári, Caddi, Eri, Stephanie, Ashley, Abbye, Gabby, Beth, Laura and Langley, Anastasya, Sandra, Laura, Emily, Shannah, Laura A., Irina, Fab, Kay, Bri, Kandy, Katherine, Beth, Ilaria, Eri, Melanie, Irene, Morrison, Stephanie I., Everett, Karli, Barbara, Shannah

Outgoing: 28 Ilaria, Morrison, Shannah, Michi, Eri, Caddi, Stephanie, Tári, Valérie, Elizabeth, Abbye, Yasmeen, Anastasya, Beth , Sara, Sandra, Laura L., Laura A., Stephanie I, Alicja, Fab, Shannah, Bri, Kandy, Kay, Ilaria, Simona, Beth

The incoming still outnumbers the outgoing, but not for long! If time allows at work, I'll stop by the post office at lunch tomorrow- right now I have 8 outgoing letters and packages, and the number is likely to hit double digits before then as I'm still dilligently working on getting caught up on replies.

The best part is I've been trying a little harder on making my envelopes more attractive, so I should have lots of colorful pictures to post when they do go out.

(What's going out tomorrow: Letter and a birthday surprise for Cazzie, penpal notebook to Hannah, letter and some goodies for Eri, letters to Romaine, Mel,  Irina and Barbara and letters + tiny surprises to Shannah and Stephanie I.)

A Good Day Made Better

So, after spending all of last night  pouting about it and walking into my office with my head hung because I knew it was going to be a terrible day due to the work arrangements.... I had the best day of my career so far. :D They had me keying in information for a new program that's about to launch, which sounds really boring, but it's so different from what I do on a regular basis, the switch was such a relief. And I was really good at it, too!

But that's talk for letters, I suppose. And now it's time for the talk about letters, as my day was made even better when I found five letters waiting in my P.O. Box. :D

A letter from Melanie, written on adorable stationery as always.

A letter from Irene, the easy parts written in Italian to help in
my learning attempts! Also included: a postcard of Rome and
two lanyards (not pictured.)                                                       

A letter from Morrison. Mermaid stationery! :)

A letter from Stephanie I., who is the first person I wrote to via FB!
I'm the first one who contacted her through one, too. The tie envelope
was a great touch for a letter written on Father's Day, and even though
you can't see it, the letter is very colorful. <3                                        

A first response from Everett, who I found on SendSomething!

So... it's hard to beat such a great mail day. :D It does put me a bit behind on replies, but I've got all weekend to do nothing but write letters and make more FBs! ....Hmm. My incoming is higher than my outgoing at the moment. Gotta fix that!

Incoming: 29 Tári, Caddi, Eri, Stephanie, Ashley, Abbye, Gabby, Beth, Laura and Langley, Anastasya, Sandra, Laura, Emily, Shannah, Laura A., Irina, Fab, Kay, Bri, Kandy, Katherine, Beth, Ilaria, Eri, Melanie, Irene, Morrison, Stephanie I., Everett

Outgoing: 27 Ilaria, Morrison, Shannah, Michi, Eri, Caddi, Stephanie, Tári, Valérie, Elizabeth, Abbye, Yasmeen, Anastasya, Beth , Sara, Sandra, Laura L., Laura A., Stephanie I, Alicja, Fab, Shannah, Bri, Kandy, Kay, Ilaria, Simona

What's New?

Hmm....

Today I received a letter from Eri in Japan! And with it she sent a book of Fullmetal Alchemist anime postcards! Rest assured, fangirl squealing ensued.

I didn't send anything out today as I was stranded at work during my lunch hour, but tomorrow I'll be sending to my new penpal Hannah in England, with whom I'll be passing a notebook back and forth and we'll write our letters in that. I've always been interested in doing something like this so I fished around to see if anyone was interested, and ended up with a bite. :)

In other news, I'm kind of nervous/flustered/irritated right now because I'll be working in a different office tomorrow, keying in information for my work's new computer program that's supposed to launch this month. So me and all the other "Seasonal" employees were summoned, told it wasn't optional and instructed to make our way over to this office first thing in the morning. Luckily I don't think I'll be dealing with phones (when the lady called to tell me I was needed, I thought for 60 seconds I'd be working the switchboard and redirecting calls all day. I almost quit on the spot. Fortunately I waited a moment for that misconception to be cleared up). But anyway, it's still totally out of my comfort zone and I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a very long day indeed. I won't even be able to multitask and write letters like I usually do! :(

Also, sometime this weekend I'm planning on doing a special post regarding all of the things I collect/hoard obsessively. I can't wait to share pictures of my growing comic collection, PCs, and -my favorite part- my Iron Man mask! :) I've been thinking about doing this for a while but it's such a pain taking all those pictures on the cell phone and then waiting for them to transfer to my email and then upload them all. But I don't have any plans this weekend, so there should be time.

If any of my penpals want to email, Facebook, text, Kakao Talk or whatever with me to make tomorrow go by faster, that'd be great. ;D

Incoming: 24 Tári, Caddi, Eri, Stephanie, Ashley, Abbye, Gabby, Beth, Laura and Langley, Anastasya, Sandra, Laura, Emily, Shannah, Laura A., Irina, Fab, Kay, Bri, Kandy, Katherine, Beth, Ilaria, Eri

Outgoing: 27 Ilaria, Morrison, Shannah, Michi, Eri, Caddi, Stephanie, Tári, Valérie, Elizabeth, Abbye, Yasmeen, Anastasya, Beth , Sara, Sandra, Laura L., Laura A., Stephanie I, Alicja, Fab, Shannah, Bri, Kandy, Kay, Ilaria, Simona

June Stats- 06/20

Incoming: 23 Tári, Caddi, Eri, Stephanie, Ashley, Abbye, Gabby, Beth, Laura and Langley, Anastasya, Sandra, Laura, Emily, Shannah, Laura A., Irina, Fab, Kay, Bri, Kandy, Katherine, Beth, Ilaria

Outgoing: 27 Ilaria, Morrison, Shannah, Michi, Eri, Caddi, Stephanie, Tári, Valérie, Elizabeth, Abbye, Yasmeen, Anastasya, Beth , Sara, Sandra, Laura L., Laura A., Stephanie I, Alicja, Fab, Shannah, Bri, Kandy, Kay, Ilaria, Simona