Archive for the Category ◊ Penpalling/Swapping ◊

Making goals & attempting (again) to get stuff done…
Author:
• Monday, July 12th, 2010

It’s another Monday morning. I’m feeling a bit guilty about all of the time I’ve spent slacking off in front of the TV, so I’m getting a to-do list to get my butt moving again. To be fair, I was feeling pretty crappy over 4th of July weekend thanks to womanly issues – and the heat and humidity this week have been pretty nasty, so most of my time has been on the couch in front of the AC… simply because that’s been the only comfortable place in the house to be.

I have a lot of mail-related things to get done, but also projects I’ve been putting off. So… for this week:

  • Get together with Erich’s dad for his birthday
  • Finish sorting old clothes for donation (will do on Sunday)
  • Finish addressing all postcards for personal swaps on postcrossing
  • Finish addressing all cards for the July RR swap on postcrossing
  • Send out Rahenna’s piece for the UFO RR
  • Sort sheets & towels – match sheet sets up
  • Put away all clean laundry
  • Sort socks (dun.. dun… DUN!)
  • Finish the little Christmas ornie for the LaS stitch-a-long
  • Make pies before the ingredients go bad
  • Sift through 1 month of uploaded journal entries & fix them
  • Get my WoW account settled & ready to go for gaming again

And some generic tidying once the weekend comes around.

My focus to start this week is all of the mail-related things. That’s my focus for tonight. Years of penpalling and swapping still come into play and I’ll fly through them tonight!

I’m particularly proud that I’m ready to get the UFO RR on its way this week. I honestly could have sent it on last week, but I’ve been meaning to get a photo taken of it… AND… as I do every round, I do a good sticky roller over the piece to clean off any stray cat hair (in my house?!? NEVER!) before I send it off. We were out of sticky rollers – an issue now solved, so I’ll get that packaged up tonight.

Longer term projects include getting my stitching stuff completely organized, but that’s weather-dependent because my office is on the 2nd floor of our house and therefore not in the AC.  If we get a cool, rainy day by the end of the month I’ll tackle it – otherwise that’s a “early autumn” thing, as annoying as it is.  I received a fantastic excel chart from Jenn (thank you!!) to help organize my stash.  I’m looking forward to really getting in there and getting everything sorted.

Erich’s been very busy the past week cleaning out old boxes and tubs in the basement – a lot of it has been my stuff he’s been sorting, and I’m just accepting that it needs to happen. I’m so horrible about throwing stuff out that, aside from a few things this past weekend, I haven’t even dared look in the boxes of what he’s throwing out. I’m just letting him do it. I’ve kept deflecting the responsibility to go down there and clean stuff out, and he finally just started doing it – and as much as it kills me, I know I need to allow him to just do this so it’s done. I seriously doubt anything’s vital down there. To be fair, the vast majority of it has probably been in boxes down there since at least the cleaning frenzy before our wedding (in 2007) if not since we moved into the house (in 2005)… so I seriously doubt I’ll even notice it’s gone. A lot was just old bills and crap that’s been collecting forever. Hell, there were bills and other papers in there from my college apartment – they’d just gotten mixed in with junk in storage somehow.

So yes – our recycling containers have been very full the past few days. He’s doing a great job getting through stuff. Anything that’s a bill or has potentially important info on it is getting put in a specific wooden box for the “burn” pile. Two or three times per year Erich pulls out the wheeled camp grill (one of those grated metal jobbies) onto the driveway, pulls up a chair and just tosses everything into the fire. It’s a bit too hot right now – I imagine the next burn date will probably be sometime in September. But he’s got a nice, big pile to burn this time. We’ll have to invite friends over for a BBQ and bill burn at this rate!

So anyway, that’s my rambles for this morning. Time to get to work…

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Category: Connections, Erich, Life, Work, and all the Rest, Penpalling/Swapping, Stitching   Tags: , ,  | One Comment
Traveling Journals
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• Wednesday, June 14th, 2006

Some of my long time blogging friends may remember (or have been a part of) my little addiction to traveling journals a few years back. It started with 1000 Journals, in which I was fortunate enough to contribute to two journals (both now apparently lost).

After that, I spent a very successful couple of years hosting an ongoing project called “Glimpse of Time” on Nervousness before it was overrun by irresponsible people and snobs who defined art- for the site- in a very narrow way. During the first incarnation there, I had fourteen very successful journals, all of which returned. When I sent them back out in the “improved” nervousness (supposedly under tighter controls about who was allowed to become a member), I lost all fourteen in the ether.

Tonight, after registering my recent cards received via Postcrossing (like Bookcrossing, but with postcards), I decided to pop over and see what was happening over on 1000 Journals.

And he’s created a new project= 1001 Journals. Which are started by the participants. :) I still have some blank books lying around from the Glimpse of Time project, so what the hell– they might as well be released into the world to see what happens. AND best of all– It’s Brand New. I created a journal today, and it’s only #17 (1017, to be exact).

I’d REALLY like to start a couple with people who I know casually through this fun little blogging community. A cross-stitcher’s book? Maybe just a blogger’s book?

If you’re interested, please join the site (it’s free). Then leave me a comment here with your screenname over there. And I’ll send you an invite on a book. :)

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Autumn Goals and Events
Author:
• Wednesday, September 07th, 2005

It’s hard to believe that it’s already a week into September. This year has flown, but at least this year I know exactly why!

Anyway, now that the weather is cooler and I can be upstairs and actually DO the things I want to in my office… I’m setting myself some personal goals for some “autumn organizing.” Ideally, I’d like to do this by the end of October, but realistically, it’s November… and more realistically, I have no hope of getting all of this done, but I’m going to at least try it because I’ll be extremely happy if I can get it all done.

Important Dates to Remember
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Sept. 9th, Dad’s birthday
- Sept. 12th, World’s Largest Dungeon game
- Sept. 16-18th, in Maine to see Erich’s mom
- Sept. 24th, Erich’s game, Frank’s birthday
- Oct. 1st, Ivanna’s wedding (in PA/NJ Sept. 30-Oct. 2)
- Oct. 10, World’s Largest Dungeon game
- Sometime in October, King Richard’s Faire
- Oct. 21-24, mourn not being at JournalCon, but drink anyway
- November 1st, NaNoWriMo again owns my soul (but not in an ML capacity this year)
- November 10, Erich’s mom’s birthday
- November 22, Marya’s birthday
- November 23, Ivanna’s birthday
- November 24, Thanksgiving (at home, if anyone needs a place to eat)
- November 25-27th, on Cape Cod for annual LANness

Things to do…

KITCHEN
~~~~~~~
- Clean out and reorganize butler’s pantry
- Unpack rest of boxes currently out on mudroom porch
- Figure out how/where all kitchen supplies go to reclaim counter space
- An honest hands and knees scrub of the kitchen floor (bleh)

BEDROOM
~~~~~~~~
- Reorganize dresser
- Put away heaping pile of clean clothes on dresser
- Stablize bedside table

CLOSET
~~~~~~~~~
- Resort shoe rack
- Organize top shelves
- Set aside place for assessories (belts, scarves, etc)
- Get dry-cleaning done

OFFICE
~~~~~~~~~
- Fix storage cart wheels
- Empty all boxes currently in the room ** IN PROGRESS **
- Organize things into storage carts & label carts
- Organize bookshelf
- Set up lamp
- Gather and sort all computer CD’s by computer type

OUTSIDE
~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Buy some bags of topsoil
- Plant hydrangea in ground
- Plant day & asiatic lilies in ground
- Plant lemon basil in ground
- Help Erich with raking and trimming as needed

STITCHING
~~~~~~~~~~~
- Gather all WIPs and UFOs, make sure they have all supplies
- Photograph all WIPs and UFOs
- Update website WIP pages
- Create list of all stash supplies- charts, threads, kits, etc.
- Finish Egyptian Sampler rotation
- Cats on a Staircase rotation
- Astrology sampler start/rotation
- The Castle rotation ** IN PROGRESS **
- Smoky Mountain Cats rotation
- Home is Where the Cat is rotation (finish?)
- Purchase fabric for Apache Wedding Blessing
- Apache Wedding Blessing rotation
- Purchase floss organizer boxes for each individual project in WIP list

SWAPPING
~~~~~~~~~~~
- Update status report on lists by Sept. 8th
- Repost new swaps Sept. 8th
- Get all overdue swaps done and out by Sept. 9th * IN PROGRESS **
- Finish all current swaps ** IN PROGRESS **
- Bag and send all excess supply swaps by Sept. 12th ** IN PROGRESS **
- Bundle penpal letters for replies

SORORITY
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Meet with Tricia to do website updates ** POSTPONED **
- Meet with Maureen regarding alumni help needs
- Attend meetings as often as possible (at least one per month)
- Host Stitch-n-Bitch during fall semester (with Michelle? Alumni event?)
- Attend at least one rush event that isn’t the Tea
- Attend the Tea

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Category: Connections, Family & Friends, Life, Work, and all the Rest, Penpalling/Swapping, Stitching, Tau Beta Sigma   Tags:  | Leave a Comment
Swirling life in a nutshell
Author:
• Friday, April 15th, 2005

It’s been a strange, chaotic week, and I just haven’t had the energy to sit and collect my thoughts. I imagine that tomorrow, with well over 12 hours of “Me Time,” I’ll be able to do a couple of good, long journal entries. I miss doing the ones with substance and meaning, as opposed to prattling on about my day to day life and venting about stress at work.

So, while I’m hoping to compose some promised entries (i.e. questions from Liamstliam and Bozoette Mary) done tomorrow as well as some additional topics I want to wrap my head around, I need to do a bit of a filler entry with my life in general.

Really, things aren’t that bad here. I’m actually doing quite well. There’s just a lot going on. So… here’s my life currently in a nutshell.

Work: Is crazy as always, but as the office move to Boston grows nearer (6 weeks from today), my brain is spinning more. I’m just about at the point where my priorities are shifting from everyday work to the move coordinating. My coworkers aren’t liking the change… but they’re going to have to suck it up and deal. Especially since they ignore my pleads for some assistance with getting stuff done. Someone’s got to get the cleaning out of random paper done.

House Purchase: After a couple of tense moments this week regarding problems with insurance policies, we’re in good shape. We’ve arranged for an insurance policy. They’ve sent over a statement of acceptance to our mortage broker. We have electrical fixes that have to be completed within 45 days of sale (which is fine– it just shifts our priorities for “getting things fixed” a bit). We close two weeks from today. Isn’t that scary? And at this point, all we really have left to do is get the gift letters from both of our mothers, have my mom wire the down payment money to my bank account, and take a first time buyers class the week we close. Oh– and show up for the closing, of course. :)

Apartment: Jason moved out at the end of March. We initially were bracing for three weeks of quiet before Erich’s dad moved in with us for a while. But– that has changed, thanks to Erich’s dad finding a new contracting job. Ironically, he’s also going to be moving to Rhode Island. It’s the hip place to be, apparently. So until we move, we have the place to ourselves. Which means much easier sorting and packing to move.

Wedding: All plans are on hold for now until we get into the house. My guess is that come late July/early August, I’ll really start looking at dresses and getting plans in the works for the wedding. The current plan, while nowhere near firmed up, is that we’ll have the wedding ceremony in Roger Williams Park in Providence, and then have a casual appetizer & cocktails party at the house afterward. Timeframe is either Mother’s Day or Memorial weekend next year.

Organizations: Tau Beta Sigma stuff is winding up for the school year soon, as the end of classes are in two weeks. I’m very proud of the chapter. They’ve come amazingly far. On the other side of the coin, I’m now on the planning committee for JournalCon 2005, which is being held in San Diego. (come… you must! Really!)

Hobbies: Penpalling has fallen by the wayside in recent months. I’ve accepted I’m just in a burnt-out stage. I’ve just encountered a lot of pushy, rude people over on Yahoogroups that really suck the interest out of me. I know I’ll get back into it at some point, but I need the break, I think (and my money really needs to go elsewhere right now… obviously). And maybe when I get back to it, I’ll just get out of all of the yahoogroups. I need to get a lot of fb’s and slams moving so they’re out of my apartment, but energy has been a factor. I do plan on making a good dent on that this weekend. Which is about what I say every weekend. Stitching is going well– I’m just about to finish my rotation on The Castle. I’ve slowed down into a longer rotation this round, doing probably 15-20 hours per project. It’s making a noticeable difference on where things are. This weekend I’ll get back to working on my Christmas Stocking. I expect to finish my current rotation by late May, and then will pack everything for the move.

So yeah, that’s my life at the moment. :) It’s good. Really. I’m just so busy that remembering to eat is an issue right now.

Hopefully some good, cathartic writing will appear this weekend…

~ Mel.

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Category: Connections, Erich, Family & Friends, House, Life, Work, and all the Rest, Penpalling/Swapping, Tau Beta Sigma, Uncategorized  | Leave a Comment
Goals to be done before end of spring…
Author:
• Thursday, February 24th, 2005

It’s the “I want it to be spring because I’m sick of the snow so I’m making a spring cleaning list in an attempt to will Mother Nature to listen to me” list.

Mew. It’s a lot, but I want to get stuff down so I’m productive at home

Travel-Related
- Djadju’s 80th birthday party in Pennsylvania
- Get adoption records to back up birth certificate, per passport agency requirement
- Complete passport application
- Finalize dates for Germany/Poland trip with Mom for summer, if it’s going to happen
- Easter and/or Mother’s Day in Maine
- Dinner at some point with Erich’s dad

Finances
- Taxes
- Make new update check on all bills
- New bank account

Car
- get brakes checked
- oil change @ 165,000 miles
- service around 165,000 miles needed (?)

Cats
- Fizzy needs appointment for Rabies shot & Distemper shots by mid-March
- Colley tooth cleaning (arrange for summer?)
- Check litter box condition and replace if necessary
- Go through and chuck dead cat toys

Wedding Schtuff
- Write other relatives to spread news
- Thank you cards for engagement money
- Talk with mom on a date and location
- Set a date
- After setting date, send save-the-date announcements
- Start making notes on ideas

Laundry
- mine
- house
- drycleaning

Computer- Related
- Clean out laptop and get rid of dead files
- Weed out email folders
- Clean out desktop computer

Purchases
- new iron
- humidifier
- check iPod prices
- auction feedback on ebay and yahoo

House Maintenance
- New shower curtain
- Scrub down bathroom
- Clean out hall closet
- Clean out family room closet
- Organize bathroom and kitchen sink cabinets
- Bedroom closet weed-out & clothes donation
- Organize bookshelves and ritual cabinet in bedroom
- Sort through old bills, shred anything from Blackwood Street apartment (or *groan* older)

Penpalling
- catch up on swaps
- and letters.
- and excess out-the-door swaps
- and clean out all bins & reorganize
- partner current swaps open for signups (needs to be done 3/2/05)

RPG Work
- update notebook and mapbook for World’s Largest Dungeon game
- organize character binder
- If we’re not using them and don’t need them, 3.0 small books (Masters of the Wild, etc) on ebay?

Stitching
- 10 hours of backstitching on The Castle (hopefully complete top half’s backstitching)
- Egyptian Sampler restart– complete Osiris and Done-to-Date on Horus
- New progress photos of The Castle, Egyptian Sampler, and Stocking
- 5 hours on Smoky Mountain Cats (and photo)
- Formulate more practical rotation for next round

Sorority Stuff
- meeting Sunday 2/27 @ 6 p.m.
- update website info… connect bigs and littles on class pages
- upload photos from autumn 2004 into new photo albums
- Districts? Yes? No? Figure out finances and decide if going

Website
- Find standard layout for all pages
- Change layout on blog
- Update stitching photos & links
- Update fanfic pages
- Update Pagan pages
- Transfer non-measi.dx pages over to website for archiving

In-No-Hurry-We’ll-Get-To-It-Eventually-Stuff
- Organize all pages that have been stuffed into Book of Shadows
- Go through Computer CD’s and put in binders. Make record of all important codes & chuck old cases
- Organize kitchen cabinets
- Bookshelves in computer room once Jay finds an apartment
- Reorganize computer room once Jay finds an apartment

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Category: Big Life Events, Connections, Family & Friends, Penpalling/Swapping, Travels, Wedding  | Leave a Comment
Mail addiction
Author:
• Tuesday, March 25th, 2003

A few people emailed me last night and asked what organization the group through which my office was doing our military donations. The organization is called Operation Shoebox.

Regardless of whether you are for or against the war, take time out to show the soldiers you care. :) Write a letter to them– put together a care package (make sure you look in this site– there are guidelines on what can and can’t be sent to them). Just do whatever you can to connect the troops with the world back home.

Can’t afford to do so on your own? Get together with a friend or neighbors. Organize something through school so everyone can donate a few things. Talk to your church and organize something there– however you see your local community, get involved and organize something.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The response letters have started arriving from my penpals who I’d lost contact with. After my long hiatus from penpalling for Nervousness and moving last summer, I finally started pulling the boxes out of storage with all of my penpal letters, friendship books, etc. and began going through them. During our really slow post blizzard work day, I took advantage of the slow time to start catching up on some of the mail.

Now I’m getting responses. Not a flood, thankfully, but they’re coming in at a rate of about 10-15 per week. I can handle this rate quite easily. No problem. :)

I sent a pretty generic apology letter to everyone at first, purely because I had SO many letters written to me that I was finding around my apartment. I wanted to get in touch with everyone– both existing penpals and new ones, and apologize for the delay, fill them in on a bit, and hope they replied. There have been a TON of letters to send out– more than I realized, once I started typing addresses into my computer database so I know whether I sent a letter to someone or not (in case I find more than one letter for them in the storage boxes).

I think I put a postal worker’s kid through college this month.

I have to say– I worship whomever in the postal service came up with the concept of self-stick stamps. This man or woman is my hero. I’d have a severely gum-flavored tongue if it weren’t for those sticker stamps.

It’s amazing to hear what some of my penpals have been going through in the past year to two years– some have had children. One got divorced. One got married. Three have boyfriends or husbands who have been deployed. My overseas penpals have a lot to say about the war, but none of it offensive or accusatory– they have concerns, like I do. One of my penpals, who I’ve written to for about ten years, is an elderly man who lives in Israel. He has such fascinating stories to tell, and everything’s written in a flowing, elegant script from a bygone era.

I’d forgotten how much I’d missed receiving mail from around the world. And how much I’ve missed writing letters. I’m handwriting any replies now– because the brunt of the mailing is now winding down for the first letters. I’ve made it into a morning ritual; after Erich leaves for work, I get a letter or two written in the morning as I watch the news and get cat cuddles.

And as I’ve reconnected with all of the penpalling and swapping groups on Yahoo the past two weeks, I’ve been surprised how many people have emailed me to say “Mel! You’re back! We missed you!”

Funny that.

I didn’t realize so many people would remember me after disappearing over a year ago.

It’s kinda cool.

And extremely uplifting at a time when I’m feeling utterly unsure of myself.

~ Mel.

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Springtime Sundays
Author:
• Sunday, April 14th, 2002

I hate beautiful Sundays when I’m supposed to be getting housework done. I don’t want to be in here– I want to go outside.

It’s absolutely beautiful in Boston today. The sun is shining, it’s around 70 degrees, and the gentle breeze is keeping things from feeling hot outside. The Red Sox and Yankees are duking it out at Fenway, and every once in a while I can hear the roar of the crowd, despite the fact that Fenway Park’s probably a mile away from where I am. Much to my chagrin, the Sox are losing (currently bottom of the 7th, 5-2 Yanks), but ah well… it’s the Red Sox after all.

I wanted to get a ton of cleaning done today, but having made two trips down to the dumpster with boxes and a full trash bag, I’m wary of bringing anything more down there– the thing’s already overflowing, and since there’s no trash pickup tomorrow due to Marathon Monday, I don’t want to encourage even more rats with the big clean-out job I have to do: my fridge. But I will get some stuff done today– scrub the bathroom and kitchen, and get my laundry together (and hopefully done if I can scrounge up quarters).

I have to do some errands in Copley Square today since tomorrow will be impossible to get anywhere in Back Bay. I have three new LMAO’s styled after the 1000 Journals Project that I’m sending out on Wednesday, so I need to go pick up a blank sketchbook for each. Bretano’s in Copley Place Mall has become my best friend for these. I hope the sales help in the store isn’t recognizing me by face, considering I’ve probably been in there once a week for the past six or so to get random blank sketchbooks.

Yep, it’s a busy weekend. Patriot’s Day weekend always seems to be that way.

I love Patriot’s Day weekend, but it is NOT a day to be in Boston, particularly around Copley Square. The amount of people is just intimidating. And since my apartment is literally only a few blocks from the finish line, I’d rather escape the city for the day. I *could* go to work, but what fun is that? (grin)

So instead, I’m hoping to head down to Erich’s, and the two of us can go do something day-trippy. Going up to Salem has been mentioned, since Erich’s never been there. Hitting a movie’s a possibility, although if it’s supposed to be beautiful again tomorrow, maybe something outdoors-ey is a better choice, considering that it’s only a few precious weeks until the humidity makes outdoor activities unbearable, and we start celebrating a million viewings of Star Wars: Episode II, regardless of the quality, just to stay out of the weather and stay in that novelty called air-conditioning.

I just hate having chores to do when it’s so nice out. *sniff* *sniff*

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Large mail call
Author:
• Saturday, April 07th, 2001

finally went to the post office to pick up the mail from my box…. I think it’s been about 3 or 4 weeks.

(by the way, if anyone’s looking for a “snail mail” penpal or swaps fb’s, decos, lyrix, or slams… drop me a line. You can find my address on my penpal website at Friends Through Writing. My address is at the bottom. Would love to hear from you. =)

Anyway… like I said, finally got to the post office. Had two boxes of friendship books from Shawn and Dalla. Had 20 other pieces of mail, including my monthly letter from the religious nut in Florida. Now… while I have no problem with Jehovah’s Witnesses believing what they want to believe, I find it sad that this woman will send me a copy of the Watchtower every month. One of these days I’ll write her and tell her to stop. You’d think that my silence would be a sign that I wasn’t interested, no?

So other than the boxes and Religious Nut, letters came from the following places:

In the US:

Kansas

Colorado (2)

Massachusetts

Pennsylvania

Georgia

Connecticut (2)

APO (in Germany)

Maine

Ohio

Florida (not counting Religious Nut)

Out of the US:

UK (2)

Germany (2)

Slovenia

Australia (3)

Spain

Okay… so, 21 letters. I miscounted. My bad. *grin*

In any case, lots of mail. And since I’m already behind, I guess I’ll spend tomorrow during the day and evening catching up on some. Whether I’ll type them or handwrite them, I have no idea… probably a little of both. Depending on what kind of letter I received from the person. Some people are really pissy about getting typed letters from penpals. I can understand it a bit, but even when I type letters, I use rubber stamps or something to decorate the paper so it has a personalized look. My handwriting is so slow and sloppy after writing a couple of letters that I’d rather the unfortunate person (who was the third or later person I replied to in a day) be able to read my words in a typed letter, rather than receive and be tortured by chicken scratch.

The Crew is going up to play at JT and Tan’s place in Nashua tonight. I’m not sure if we’re meeting for lunch before we hit the commuter rail up that way. LGM is DM’ing. I’ve decided I’ll pretty much keep to myself outside of game. I’m just going along for the ride. *shrug* Not sure if I’ll be staying in Nashua overnight or not. JT is driving everyone back to Boston, and I don’t know if there’s room for six people (two of which are 6’1″ or taller) in either JT or Tan’s car. If there isn’t, I’ll crash out and have him drive me to the train in the morning. I’m the odd-person-out in this crew, anyway.

Better get offline in case I hear changes in the game plan today. Will write more tomorrow.

–Mel.

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