The Beach

I was able to sneak away to the beach yesterday. 70' and gloriously sunny.

Chalk fabric

Giant industrial Singer

I chose my route to take me past Boersma's in McMinnville. One of my favorite fabric stores.

They do some serious long arm quilting but the have a treasure trove of sewn examples beyond quilts.

And the friendliest staff ever.

These weird jellyfish were washed up on the two beaches I stopped at. Very cool looking.
In a Star Trek way - want to see them on tv, not touch them with my bare feet.

Looking at Mo's Restaurant from across the inlet.

First stop was lunch at Mo's. Home of the best clam chowder ever.
Except, I have to eat plain steamed clams as I cannot tolerate too much wheat/dairy.
poor me, lol.

For Janine, an entire rack of postcards at the local Safeway grocery store.
A postcrossing bonanza.

February Mail Chicken Giveaway

The Winner of my chicken hot pad is Teresa  who won by saying she really hoped the chicken would come to her house to play.

I received over 2 inches of mail. From Australia, Sweden, Japan, and quite a few states. I even discovered a fellow Postcrossing Queen just 20 minutes north of me who has sent and received over 4000 postcards.

One of my friends replied in kind with an offer of tea.

I have not discovered a way to rotate photos with this blog app. Maybe some young thing will know how.

Was my rural mail carrier count a success?
ABSOLUTELY.
She was working on average 10- 11 hr days. In spite of all of mgmt's counting tricks, Mgmt will need to shave off two hours from her route similar to the other routes that were also counted. She will go back to working the 9 hrs she gets  paid for as soon as route adjustments can be figured out.

We are seriously overworked at the post office. Training new people is an exercise in one day futility and new people are too overwhelmed at everything there is to accomplish in a day -so they quit almost before they start.

I think I received over 40 cards and postcards in February plus several packages.

Thank you all for playing my game.
It was much appreciated.

I sent out over fifty cards myself.

I loved getting the mail because everyday there was something special inside the box.
Muchos Gracias!

Notes on the this Blogaway  app: inability to rotate photos. No hyperlink capability. Didn't want to publish heavy photo post - saved to draft eventually.

Mail Count Half Over

Flying airplane with chickie pilot - Love it. Looks like our old Cessna 170A.

Fukuoka:  Special postcrossing postcard for different regions in Japan. Vintage castle postcard.

Scandanavian Crocheted Heart - you can find how-to directions on the sidebar of Teresa's Blog:

A fellow Postcrosser: Over 4000 cards sent and she lives 20 minutes from me!!!

Benta sent a fabric postcard for my mail carrier too!

Fumikou - Japanese letter sachets. I can make my own now.

Sweet pile of February fun.

Today's outgoing mail

Taking photos today of some of the postcards I've received. So far.

My carrier is super happy with how much mail volume she has received. Normally, during count, mail volume vanishes. ** As in, everyone suspects the PO of holding back the mail, somehow. Not this time. Lots of packages, lots of hours, lots of first class. Three routes are being counted out of six rural routes for my city of Canbyland. We have five city routes which get figured differently (I know!). So complicated - it's the government at its best. I love being a federal employee (sarcasm!).





I came up with a giveaway for everyone who reads this blog - you can tell your friends too.
To win this chicken pot holder, all you have to do is send me a postcard (or a letter). It must be postmarked between Feb 7 - 24, 2015). My address is in the original giveaway post.

This helps out my amazing mail carrier with more mail volume. I will draw randomly - seriously- the best postcard photo, the best joke, the best drawing, it will be my favorite card.

International peoples are welcome, I will post this chicken hot pad to the winner at the end of February.
Rural mail count goes from February 7 - 28, but I chose to end this giveaway on the 24th so I can receive your entry during mail count.

***You might get extra points if you state on your postcard or in your letter how many other stamped pieces of mail you sent out during this time.
***Or maybe you know some good chicken jokes.
***Or, you can sketch flying airplanes, with chickie pilots.

AirMail Earrings

My friend, Janine, has lived in Japan for over 25 years now. She blogs over at CraftyTokyoMama.

Each summer, she comes home to visit family. She and her daughter go camping, fishing, horseback riding and anything else Oregon-wise they can fit into the time they have. 

Unfortunately, that meant we couldn't meet up this time. We had to make do with the US Mail. Did you know it's much cheaper to send a package to her parents in Oregon than all the way to Japan?!?   I might have gone overboard throwing things into my package.
Janine, who is the mistress of beautiful packaging, sent me a package that was a delight to see & open.

 These Letter Earrings are already a huge hit at work. My co-worker tells everyone they are addressed to me!
They certainly appear real with "via AirMail" underneath the stamp.
The reverse side has "Postcard" written across the top with "I Love You" in script on the message side.

 Janine, who crochets better than anyone else I know, crocheted these while camping!
I think she blocked them too!
I have a coaster set of four different designs plus a square doily and a smaller round doily.
She had a book with different designs and went hog-wild!

We must live in the dirt when we go camping. If I were to bring something "white" it would be brown in no time.

Little Miss Geisha Girl is actually a "going visiting hanky" that all Japanese women carry.
I'm supposed to bring it when I visit Kyoto next Spring.

Even her card is special! Eastern Airlines! She knows about my airplane problem.

Did you spot the other airplane hanging on the card? It's an Airmail Stamp brooch.

She wraps everything in cute papers and washi tape. 

Each item came packaged. She even gave me some masking tape  (spot the airplane...). Is that a hint?
 

When I send things to her, I am intent on using up all available flat rate space. As in, crammed full!

I sent her some really random items. Blue nail polish for her daughter, Moonstruck (Portland) chocolate bars, MarionBerry Syrup (Neighbor make - Glenmore Farms), random sewing notions, some Clover Wonder Clips, etc.
All jumbled with no washi tape inside a priority box. And a huge pile of postcards for her Postcrossing addiction.

Writing To The World

Our J-5 might be painted Cruiser Orange

I started working full time again - in management. If my poor blog  has been relegated to the back burner, just think about my sewing. Well, actually, I am sewing --weird stuff. Like the luggage compartment for our J-5 Cub. That's our little airplane project. This plane will enable us to fly in the winter months in Oregon and not cost near as much as the big round engine of the Stearman biplane.

This last weekend I attended the Quilt Expo here in Portland with Pencil Girl and then came home to hubby's request of affixing the luggage compartment into the frame of the J-5.
It needed snaps and grommets - not a tall order, but impressive to hubby. Kinda like a Ta-Da! wave your magic wand moment.

I'm also commuting. Something I have NOT done in over thirty years.
In an attempt to stay calm and read the stop and goes for what they are, my mind has started up on some pretty random thoughts.

I haven't talked about Postcrossing on this blog before.  Crafty Tokyo Mama introduced me to this modern version of penpals last Spring. I've now sent 43 postcards out and received 40.

Postcrossing involves you registering on their site. You will be given names and addresses to send postcards to. When those people receive your card, they register it on the site. Meanwhile, random people in random countries are sending you postcards.

I wasn't sure I would like the randomness of it all but now I just love it. It's thrilling to see how long a postcard to the Ukraine can take. It's astounding that every one writes near-perfect English with near-perfect penmanship. More amazingly, I'm re-learning how to write legibly!

I received one postcard from China with a complete tiny story written on her card.
Other people have looked at my profile and included airplane stamps, drawings, sewing related, or flower related.

The other night, I found Writing To The World on facebook. A 5 year old from the UK is writing to someone in every UN country. It's too amazing. Here's his letter to someone in Guatemala. Go take a peek. He's written to almost 200 countries.

On Wednesdays, Thursday & Fridays, I go out into the field for (what we call) stand-ups. I often go in early which means?
Yes, you guessed it, I get to come home early. One of those bright spots!