I don't exactly know how I have come this far in life and didn't know about this.

You would think the algorithms would have pointed me in this direction a long time ago.

But then again, maybe it came at exactly the right time.

(As these things do.)

Huh. You going soft on me?

(No, just making an observation.)

No snark?

(I'm not in the mood.)

SWEET!

Anyway, YouTube popped up with a story about a postage stamp having to do with this website and global community:

Well, don't you know.... I high tailed it over to the website and signed up!

https://www.postcrossing.com

You are allowed to send off five cards at first. Once someone registers that they received your card, then my information will be assigned to someone and hopefully, I will get a postcard.

As far as I understand, this is not a pen pal situation. It's an exchange of postcards. Now I think you can certainly get in touch with someone if you want to, because you can message people on their profile page. But the real thing is exchanging cards.

I could barely sleep last night as the ideas of how I was going to go about it were swirling around in my head.

In the morning, I started emptying out my craft drawers and paper stashes and hauled out pens and mailing supplies.

My desk hardly EVER has been so chaotic!

In honor of the occasion, I decided I would make a watercolor. I have blank watercolor postcards in my stash, so I made the card with the sun and horizons there by my Swedish Ivy plant.

That card went to Germany.

So I had questions about postage and other issues and went down to the post office to get answers. I learned an interesting fact.

I have quite a collection of un-cancelled stamps that come in Mr. P's mail. Along with an equal number of ones that are cancelled but I think are pretty. He has been giving them to me for months. I had NO idea why I wanted to keep them but I did. This is about 1/3 of them:

Now I know.

People like the postage on the postcards, and you can cobble together the right amount using a variety of stamps if you have them.

I found out however that using un-cancelled stamps that have gone through the mail already is actually a federal offense. WHUT?

Though I asked at the post office if I could use them to decorate a postcard and they said yes, as long as I had the correct unused stamps on the card.

In order to send a postcard or letter internationally, I need a special stamp. And it turns out our post office actually had one sheet of the new stamps from the video!

I ordered two more sheets from the post office. I was half giddy telling them all about my new project.

It's a small post office, they had time to listen to me gush. I love my town..... 💗

I have spent all afternoon, decorating and writing my five postcards to be mailed off in the morning.

They are going to, Germany, Ukraine, Russia, Belgium, and Texas.

Now I wait.

(Am I going to have to listen to you whine about how long it's taking to get your own postcard in the mail? Is this going to be an issue?)

I'll try to keep it to a minimum.

(For which we will all be grateful.)