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Graasland used to be mainly about books and bentos. And then menu planning with CSA vegetables. But for a while now this grazing land has become barren.
Life goes on and people change. There’s no real need for me to make lunchboxes. And I can’t seem to beat my reading slump. BUT. There’s plenty of other stuff going on!
So this month I plan on flooding you with… snailmailing! I love old-fashioned letter writing and card sending (you did not think I meant the mailing of real snails I hope; a thing that actually happens I recently learned *HORROR*). It’s called snailmail because, well: it’s sloooooweeeer than electronic messaging. Not just because of the time and effort that go into handwriting or the journey it takes from sender to receiver. There’s also the added touch of decorating and/or choosing small gifts to send along your mail. Check the #snailmail and #mailart hashtags on Instagram (IG) if your interested!
My LWM2016 item #01
April started as National Letter Writing Month in the US and turned global after letterpress greeting card companies Egg Press and Hello!Lucky shared their joint Write_On campaign on social media in 2014, to “promote joy, creativity, expression, and connection through hand-written correspondence“. The challenge to write 30 letters in 30 days has had a growing fanbase. I bet the free stationery kits they supply help – 10.000 this year! :D
Anyway, I’m in! And although I’ve already been posting all my outgoing (and incoming ;) mail on IG labeled #outgnoe (resp. #ingnoe) I’d like to show a bit more of it over here.
The first thing I sent out (on April 1st), was the garden-themed March “Winner Takes All” prize in the photo above. It went to Ciska in The Netherlands, who won it on the Swap-Bot SENG forum.
LWM2016 items #01 and #02
Because there’s no mail pickup in the weekend, I decided to also mail my item for April 2nd early. It’s a thank you to Marion from Snailmail Magazine who sent me #42 in her 366 postcards project back in February. I hadn’t gotten around to that so YAY for letter writing month!
Received
In June and July I received Postcrossing postcards from Germany, Russia, Amsterdam & Almere (Netherlands), Japan, Finland and… Poland — a first! Here’s a photo collage of the cards arriving in my mailbox.
I also received an unofficial postcard from Argentina as swap for the Miffy card (see below) I had sent to valeval on request. It’s really colourful!
There’s a whole set of received postcards on Flickr!
Sent
These are the Postcrossing postcards I have sent in June and July. As usual I tried to fulfill the addressee’s specific wishes as much as possible!
There’s a whole set of postcards I’ve sent on Flickr!
Are you a Postcrosser too?
Today I received this lovely Postcrossing postcard from Germany: a Lily of the Valley (called lelietje-van-dalen in Dutch, and Maiglöckchen in German). Amazone, it’s sender, took great care in finding a card that suits my interests and wrote a little on the back about our similar interests. I love it when people are so kind to a (relative) stranger!
I started Postcrossing in October 2008. I stopped for a while because I received so many (view)cards with only best wishes. What I like about postcrossing is hearing from fellow earthlings around the world, so I prefer it when they actually write to me ;) And sometimes I even think I like sending cards better than receiving them… Until I get a card like today — that makes my day!
It’s been raining continuously but it’s still spring; exactly the atmosphere these lovely dewy flowers communicate to me :)
Now I’m off to draw some new addresses from the tombola. I have this huge pile of unwritten postcards sitting in my drawer and I am not allowed to buy anything new until it has decreased notably — so let’s send them off!
Did you know author David Mitchell collected dinosaur postcards as a child? He told us at the Amsterdam presentation of Cloud Atlas, in 2005.
I’m really looking forward to his new book, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, to be published in June this year. The Dutch translation De onverhoorde gebeden van Jacob de Zoet (which definitely is a less poetic title) is awaited in May/June.
Jacob de Zoet is a young Dutch clerk arriving in Japan in the summer of 1799, in the hope of making a fortune before returning to Holland to wed his fiancée. But then he meets the daughter of a Samurai…
Ooops, I’m too late for this weeks Weekly Geeks* about Author Fun Facts! Well, never mind ;)
*Weekly Geeks was an inspirational event for the (book) blogging community, hosted by Dewey, originator of the 24 Hour Readathon, on Thursdays.
A dream come true: my second Postcrossing postcard came from Japan! I didn’t even know I could receive another one until some more of the cards I’ve sent are registered. I sent a ‘thank you’ to Japan in return. And it’s going well because I have also received a Florida Sunset from the US. All my cards can be found on a special Flickr page for Gnoe’s Postcrossing!
Today I received my first postcard! Some kind of reward for finishing my grant request (in time ;) or consolation for some bad news I got (no, that had nothing to do with my job, LOL).
Anyway, I was very glad to find it in my mailbox! Now I have to wait until the cards I sent have been registered… Postcrossing is an exercise in patience!
