Mail-less Monday coming

Photo by Robert Hruzek

To my readers in the USA, this just occurred to me so I'll share it with you: keep in mind that because July 4 falls on a Sunday this year, the postal holiday will be Monday, July 5. That's right - a no-mail Monday! At least this means Tuesday will be a whopper day for letters and postcards.

Trumpet stamps

Here's another one of those fine vintage Mork & Mindy postalettes. On this one I chose special stamps for the recipient, who plays trumpet. (Could you guess?)

Soda the lettercat strikes again

My most enthusiastic letter-writing helper, Soda, contributed to a recent letter. She was cute enough, posed on the letter and the surrounding supplies, that I photographed her, as above, before she added her own personal mark to one of the pages I was writing:



Wanna see it closer?



The Soda Smudge Effect: one cat's contribution to epistolary excellence.

(It's worth noting that she's sleeping on the couch next to me as I type this post. She's very good company. She is, of course, sleeping on top of the Postcrossing postcards that came in today's mail, that I need to register as received... but she's sleeping so cutely...)

Goodies from the National Postal Museum

A VERY generous pen pal who is lucky enough to live in Washington, DC sent me this pack of goodies from a recent visit to the National Postal Museum. I have often longed to go there, but this pack from the Alphabetilately exhibit is surely the next best thing. ("ALPHABET + PHILATELY or Alphabetilately is the alphabet of philately:" basically A to Z in stamps. Don't ask me how to pronounce it, because I have no idea.)



She sent some postcards, groovy bookmarks, and an awesome V-mail reproduction...



and they were all free for her! Admission is free, the goodies are free... ain't the Smithsonian grand? (The National Postal Museum is a branch of the Smithsonian.)



I got such a kick out of the mailing label she used. Potential side effects: JOY!

Statistics and The Pile

Enough pen pals have been asking that I bit the bullet and counted the letters in my needs response pile. The tally today, before receiving Thursday mail, is as follows:
98 letters
25 postcards

So there we have it. It seems insurmountable, but it's not about the tally, it's about the letter-writing experience.

That being said, a lot of pen pals and blog readers say they like my outgoing stats, and so far no one has offered any negative feedback about them. Some of my fellow mail bloggers also post incoming stats. What do you think? Should I do that? I have felt hesitant to do so because I don't want to be bragging about the amount of mail I receive - it is really quite a lot - but some folks are curious, and it might hold off those that start saying "why haven't you written me back yet??" two weeks after they sent their letter or postcard. (I have averaged my stats, unscientifically, and the mean average turnaround time for a response to a new letter or postcard - meaning someone who has never written me before - is about 3 months.)

Feedback welcome and requested!

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I don't often send a postcard from the Isabel Samaras set, "On Tender Hooks," via Postcrossing, because the Samaras stuff tends to be quite odd and offbeat. But this Postcrosser had a combination of things listed on her profile that made me think this one would be a good fit. Of course this set is from Chronicle Books, home of so many fine postcard collections.



As we learn on the back, this work is called "Gone Native (Princess Broglie)," and is oil on wood from 2005. I livened it up with an Edward Gorey stamp (a fairy? a princess? a fairy princess?) which I embellished with some glitter pens, but I'm not sure those really come through on this photo.

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Here's a cute Postcrossing postcard I sent out to Switzerland, from The Cutest Sneeze in the World postcard set from Chronicle Books, with artwork by Jeffrey Brown. I love the cat spirit in his artwork; I've blogged about these postcards a few times before, if you want to see some other designs.

Sorry for the week with no posts: I was visiting family out of town, and although I took my laptop, I had no time to update ye olde blogge. I'm back in business now, though, and will try to pick up the slack on writing plenty of letters as well as blog posts. I only got 15 letters & postcards the week I was away, though, so my backlog hasn't increased TOO terribly much.

The Very Special Giveaway will travel to Finland!

Thanks to all 22 of my wonderful correspondents who entered my Very Special Giveaway of rubber stamps and glitter pens. The winner is #4, Sirpa in Finland! I'm glad I opened this up to anyone, anywhere in the world, as Sirpa is a wonderful mail artist and I know she will put these stamps to beautiful use.

Stay tuned, I think I'll post another giveaway by next week...