p.s. I'm Sorry!

I started training for work this week and I had forgotten how draining training is (hehe I'm a poet). So much information, total overload and my brain is fried. Add in 2 hours on the train each day, moving out and cleaning the Cameri flat, spending last weekend in Turin and I'm sure you can imagine... I'm exhausted.

So I apologise for lack of update recently.

I apologise for lack of outgoing mail to those who are expecting a reply.

I'm adjusting, it will take me a while to get used to working again after a year of unemployment. It will take a lot to get used to commuting, for the first time ever and let's not talk about having to get up at 5am (eep!), so please forgive me, it will take a couple of weeks for things to get back to normal on my end.

Thank you for your kind patience my lovelies :)

Incoming

I had two deliveries this morning. One was a package of stationery I had ordered from Artbox.co.uk (part of my last kawaii sationery haul of the year) and the other was a letter from Audrey.

She covered it with beautiful stamps to the front

And endless amounts of sparkly tape to the back.


As if that wasn't enough she has filled this wonderful envie full of amazing goodies for me, including a photo of her and her bf, a gorgeous little cross stitched cat and foreign money!!! :D (I love to collect money from other countries, hehe).

Just WOW. As if the time to write and post a letter wasn't enough, I am gifted with such wonderful friends across the globe :)

I hope you all have great mail days and a fabulous weekend xx

Incoming

I've been having lots of geeky fun organising my pictures of incoming and outgoing mail. The only problem is that I've noticed holes in my records :( For the incoming I can easily fill the gaps (which I may do today) but for my outgoing it's pretty sad :((

I am trying not to send repeat stationery for each of my penpals, so these records help, it's also nice to remember what went to who and when. But alas, there shall forever be some gaps in my records!

As promised, here are the missing incomings, pics in order of when they were received.

Incoming

The gorgeous housewarming card from my Sister in London. It's so pretty it could go into a frame :)

A letter from Caiti, received at the end of last week. (Much love to you Caitlin)

A letter from Megan, received yesterday.

Packed with two awesome recipes I'm dying to try out :D

A scrummy postcard from Esme. I love that she thought of me, even though she's only written to me once (and I still haven't replied - OUCH! But it shall be written today, promise!)

And finally a kawaii swap parcel complete with these AMAZING letter sets.

AND this HUGE haul of memo sheets. This parcel was ace and I squeed a lot over it. My partner also managed to psychicly pick my favourite kawaii characters, even though they aren't stated on my swap-bot profile!

I didn't write any letters yesterday (I spent an eternity on the internet) but I'm hoping to write two today... anymore than that and I get very sleepy very early! Letter writing is taxing for lazy bums like me who haven't worked for a while ;) I have 5 in my 'reply to' pile, which is a great relief from the 10 I had this time last week!

I wish all you lovelies amazing mail days! xx

Incoming/Outgoing

Oops! I made a mistake!

^ That's my favourite saying at the moment. My mistake this time was judging everything here by English standards. I assumed my stamps would be processed and posted on Monday and so here by now, but no. Only today did I get an email insinuating, but not explicitly stating, that my order has been processed. It doesn't say it's been completed or dispatched, but I'm hoping they will arrive tomorrow. Fingers crossed eh?

I got so sick of waiting and as my pile of outgoing mail grew, I went to the post office, which is a mere 82 flip-flop steps away (they are smaller than normal steps for me) and bought a bunch to cover my outgoings for today and any letters I write in the next couple of days. It totalled 16E, so I'm going to deduct that amount from when I next buy stamps. Which shouldn't be until the end of October I believe.

Anyway, a few of these outgoings were posted yesterday, but the bulk of them went into the box this afternoon. Seeing as everything is still running on 'holiday time' here, they likely won't be picked up until tomorrow morning.

Warning... there are a lot of them ;)

Outgoing

On Saturday, we stopped at a Tabaccheria to fuel my filthy habit and we found postcards of NOVARA!!! WOW!!! So we picked up a couple, the top one is going to my mum and the bottom one is to our friend Michael, who we ALWAYS send posties to, whenever we go anywhere. Seriously... anywhere ;)

This letter is for the taboo topics swap, this time the theme was 'Weight'. I like how the envie came out, I addressed it well for once, and added some stickers ontop of the vine like plant and butterfly which came printed on the envie. It's a shame I had to get rid of most of the address :\

(The following are penpal-letters, shown in the order they were written. I tried to reply in the order I received them, and went by post marks if they came in a bunch)

This was a VERY overdue first letter to Gina.


Again, an overdue letter, in reply to Rachel's letter for my Kawaii swap held last month.


I wanted to show you the back of the envie because I bought a couple of Sakura glaze gel pens while in London and I used the white one on my airmail design. I LOVE how it came out :D


A reply to the sweet Sarah who recently returned from a trip to Europe, hence the London themed stationery :)


A reply to Julie in CA who is now the proud mother of 19 hens!!!

A reply to the wonderful Candi in Australia. She always writes me long letters and I try to send long ones back :)

This is one of the lovely notecards Elle sent me on it's way to Muriah. She's expecting her 2nd child and I can't wait to find out if it's a boy or a girl!!!

And finally a bit of Fairyland to my niece Niamh in Ireland. She was too cute to send a letter to my new mailbox (I believe the words my sister used to tell her how excited I was were 'She's wetting her knickers') so she gets this pretty in return :)

There were also a couple of packages for WTA winners from swap-bot, but I won't bore you with those!

Ok, WOW, this is a long post. Don't worry it won't be much longer ;)

As for incoming I got a letter from Miss Caiti last week, a bunch today including a letter from Megan, a Postie from Esme, a postie from Candi and an AWESOME stationery swap, BUT I have no pics... maybe tomorrow??

2 Postcards
8 Letters
2 Packages

1 AU
6 EU
5 NA

A Wordy update.

I finally ordered stamps online. I ordered twice as many as I've bought enough to cover August and September's part of the 'budget'. I'm SO excited to receive them, I think they look fabulous, especially the 1Euro stamp, it's gorgeous. I'll be sure to post pics here when they arrive. EEEE!!!!

Budget you say?? Yes, well this is the sad part :( I need to start being more responsible with money, especially seeing as I don't get paid until the 1st of October, so all my money left over from my generous mother and my savings account will go on rent, food and my train pass (which will be over 600E for the year *gulp!*) so I've budgeted 25E a month on stamps.

This means that for all my lovely penpals out there, receiving letters may be a little slower than usual because I seem to have collected so many wonderful letter writing friends, I may only be able to send you a letter once a month. So please forgive me!

This may only be temporary, the budget is flexible because we have no idea what electricity or gas is going to cost us here. It's apparently way more expensive than the UK, but with both of us working full time (a new experience, haha) hoepfully we won't be using so much juice. So if I find that I've got money left over each month, you can bet it's going to one of two places: Savings or Postage costs.


I'm a little worried about post... I've been waiting for a pretty from Micaela for a while. I truly hope it isn't lost in the post :\ To be honest, with Ferragosto and the insane amount of people who take holiday in August (around 2/3rds of the country!) I should have been expecting this. Anything that is a little bulky or oversized seems to take 3 times as long to reach me. Waiting is pants!

Also, just a reminder to everyone who reads here, please don't send mail to my old Cameri address, despite pics showing up here to that address, I won't have access to the mailbox after next weekend, so it's a big fat no go :) Although, most people have been sending to the new mailbox, but there a a few stragglers (thanks to Ferragosto) and I'm worried I'm going to lose some post along the way :,( Maybe we can talk to Drago from downstairs and see if we can hijack his mailbox for a month?

I hope you all have a buon weekend and great mail days to come :D xx

Outgoing

I panicked a little yesterday, when I realised I had to get a swap out by today. Not just any swap, but a decorated envie too! I had much fun cutting and sticking and our Cameri flat is covered in bits of sticky tape. Still! I decided to send out the two package swapas at the same time (minimises the trauma!) and I have two bday cards to send, one to my sister and the other to my niece. Sadly I forgot to take pics of the cards before I sealed them, but know that they are cute.

Outgoing

The little pile of post that is going into the post box today.

For the 'simple kawaii swap' 22 memo pages and a letter set.

For the 'few flat kawaii goodies' with decorated envie (front)

And the back. This is my first time doing this kind of mail decoration and I'm not sure I'm happy with how it came out, but I can't re-do it. It's all stuck on now ;)

The contents... A letter set, a bunch of memos and little envie containing stickers.

My partner said she liked food with faces, sushi and sea animals. So I picked these little flakes for her. I hope she likes everything!

2 Packages

2 Cards

2 EU

2 NA

Incoming

I had THREE packages (all for swaps) waiting for me in Cameri the day I wasn't there. The bf brought them over to MteSanto in the evening for me. I haven't got a picture though becuase we still don't have electricity and my laptop died earlier in the day.

When I got back to Cameri yesterday I had this little cutie waiting for me from Jen in TN

I stil have no outgoing because I have no stamps, well, that's a lie. I have two but they are for bday cards to my sister and niece... but I'm going to order a whole bunch online today so should have them by Monday at the latest. Be prepared for a big outgoing post ;)

I was wonderfully surprised by a lovely haul of mail waiting for me in my new mailbox! Sadly some of the envies got a bit squished because the opening just isn't that wide, but luckily nothing was truly damaged.

Incoming

A letter from my niece and a postie from Garci

A lovely long first letter from Esme in this cute handmade envie

This fantastic envie contained an equally great letter from Elle

And she sent me these gorgeous notecards, which I can't wait to use :)

I wrote two letters yesterday, replies to letters I received in Cameri before going to London. I was hoping to spend a lot of today writing too, but the bf's mum is coming to Novara to help me get our utilities changed over/activated. Well, she'll be doing it, I won't be able to do anything because my Italian still sucks!

I guess it doesn't really matter how many letters I write, because until I order stamps they ain't going anywhere :\ I'd better get onto that eh?

I hope you're all having great mail days today, there's nothing like a pretty mail gift to perk up a Monday! xx

Incoming/Outgoing

I had two lovely letters waiting for me in Cameri last night. AND a gorgeous Hello Kitty package for a swap. I haven't taken pics of the package as I'm still unpacking (only to repack again next week. sigh.) and haven't sorted out my camera yet.





But here are the letters... Incoming

A letter from Julie over in California and a lovely letter in a card from Muriah in Canada.

As you can see my nails are hideously long. I desperately need to cut them and it's on my to do list today. I can't stand how quickly they grow these days, I keep scratching myself and catching them on things and other people! I wish I were one of those girls who could keep long nails all pretty and manicured, but they just get in the way (and I think they make my fingers look fatter *ahem*).

Outgoing

After a long time looking for my stash of Italian stamps, I've decided some little gnome or monster has found them and eaten them, because they've just gone *poof* and vanished. This meant a traumatising trip to the post office where upon leaving, a group of teenagers refused to get out of my way and meant I accidentally boshed one of them with the brake/handlebar of my bike. I felt pretty bad (especially since my actual post office experience was pretty painless) but come on people! Don't try and be 'cool' and buck against the system by getting in other people's way and causing harm to yourself. That's just stupid.

But back to the post. I got some pretty awesome stamps today, one of which is on a swap envie I posted, but forgot to take a picture of today (D'oh!). When I get my camera up and running I'll be sure to share them :)

1 letter

1 EU

Incoming/Outgoing

I've been pretty bad about updating here, I've been busy on and off, but moslty it's due to my guilt about not writing letters. I have 4 letters to reply to but I haven't put pen to paper for a while. Part of it is forgetting to bring pretty letter sets to the UK and then accidentally packing my left over supplies. Part of it is feeling guilty about packing. I haven't really done much packing. I've been a bit lazy about it all (ahem, as usual) and so don't feel I deserve to take time out to myself. I guess that hasn't really stopped me from benig online, or sitting in the sun as I am doing now, but guilt is a strange thing.

Anyway, I finally took pics of my 4 most recent incoming letters. I also posted two packages today, the giveaway goodies for Passion and a package to Micaela's brother Marco in Iraq. I did take pics of these on my mum's camera, but we can't find the cable so pics will have to wait. Possibly indefinitely.

But here is my incoming nonetheless

A letter from Ireland for a swap

A letter from the sweet Sarah

A letter from the lovely Candi waiting for me in London. You can't see it but the 10c stamp is of Maria Island!!

And a letter from the wonderful Nicola, waiting for me in London.

She included this awesome postie for me. This is totally me by the way. It shall be proudly displayed in our new flat, along with our other awesome postcards :) Thanks lovely!

I will get replies out to you all once I'm back in Italy with my wonderful stationery again. Yes, I'm a bit bonkers :)

I'm also really looking forward to checking my mailboxes. Although the thought of even more letters to reply to overwhelms me a little. I've never had so many outstanding letters before! Eek!

Why I love letter writing

Reason 1

Magic.

I genuinely think the exchange of handwritten letters is magical. There is something so special about finding a letter on your doormat or in your mailbox, knowing someone from somewhere else in the world has taken the time to pick out stationery, has painstakingly filled pages of paper with their thoughtful words, has sealed and stamped the envelope with love (and if you're extra lucky decorated the envie too), has posted it with hopes of making you smile, touching your heart and is now patiently waiting for your beautiful reply.

When I read a letter I feel like I am receiving the special opportunity to peek into someone's soul, a letter says a lot about a person. The way they write, the subject matter, the questions they ask, they are all little glimpses into that person's personality and way of life, despite them never giving it a second thought.

I shan't go into the magic contained within the actual letter, that is another subject entirely.

But the joy of seeing that letter waiting for you to delicately peel, cut or tear open the envelope and share it's tiny spark of magic with you is fantastic.

And for me, imagining my own letters bringing my pen pals that little spark of magic, packed into the envelope many days and kilometres ago, makes me even happier.

Much happier.

Just a short one...

I had two lovely letters waiting for me upon my return from Torino (the trip was made sitting in the back of a Nissan GTR, which was both fun and funny) but I haven't gotten round to taking pics yet. We were busy on Sunday, lazy on Monday and were packing today. But I will take pics when I get back to London and will send any outstanding letters from there too.

I will be on a short mail hiatus while in London (though, I know I have one letter waiting for me there) but am looking forward to checking TWO mailboxes when I get back to Italy :D

So I am wishing you all fabulous mail days and hope you're wishing me luck with the big move ;)