January's mail

When I had a look at last year's January's mail post  I had to smile because there's such a HUGE difference between the amount of mail I got in January 2012 and in January 2013! Last year I received only 4 pieces of mail, and this year, 17! The difference is crazy, isn't it? Well, I do have more penpals than I had last year, but I think this isn't the main reason to explain that difference. I think it can be explained because last year I mailed out lots of letters during January month, so the replies came through February/March, while this year I sent more mail at the end of December/first week of January so the replies started to come in the end of January. I think this can be a rational explanation :)

So here are the 17 envelopes that fed my mailbox along the month:

17 letters in 31 days means 0.55 letter a day, or a letter every 2 days.

Average distance travelled: 2096.35 km

Longest distance travelled: 9301 km from Santa Rosa, California, USA

Shortest distance travelled: 489 km from Ulm, Germany

I'm so happy to see that there are already 21 people who joined my giveaway! If you aren't among, hurry up, you only have until Saturday to sign up! :)

Wishing you a lovely February

Tári

My blog is one year old - GIVEAWAY!

As I promised in my post yesterday, I'm hosting a giveaway to celebrate my blog's first anniversary!

The winner will receive... a surprise package! (actually, I say it'll be a surprise mostly because I haven't made my mind up yet about what I'm going to offer, haha) But I can tell for sure it'll be mail related items (paper, envelopes, stickers, pens or anything like that)

I'll give you one week to join - so that means you have up till February 2nd, 00:00 (France's time zone, look at the clock on the right to know what time it is here)
How can you join: just leave a comment below with:
-the number of your comment (if your the first person, write #1, if you're the second, write #2 etc)
-your name and country
-your favourite book and/or author (and if you haven't any, just tell me what was the last book your read) I'm a bookworm and therefore I'm always interested in what other people like to read :)
-And please remember to leave me a way to contact you, in case you're the lucky winner :) It can be the link to your blog (if you have one), or your email address.

It doesn't matter if you are a regular reader and commenter of my blog or if you're just new to it - everyone is free to join :) I want to share some love!

So, good luck everyone!!

Love, Tári

I've been spoiled!

I guess there isn't any other words to qualify my mail week. Literally, I've been spoiled! So much mail, everyday! My mailbox will get fat it it continues eating so much :P

Okay, let's see what I got :)

A handmade birthday card from Laura in the USA:

A bookmark swap from Germany. I love what my partner sent, and the envelope is also awesome! I love air mail *-*

Birthday mail from Ilga, Germany:

She sent so lovely things! *-* And the tea was really yummy!
A close up on the little card, I really love it <3 It's now decorating my bookshelf

And another close up, this time on the notepad, lovely as well:

Then arrived a late Christmas package from Laura (the girl who also sent the birthday card). Snoopy envelope! :D

What's inside...

The present was a little notebook and a pen :) Take a look at the notebook cover, it's lovely!

A late Christmas card (I assume it's handmade)

And finally the whole package! In the (air mail!) envelope containing her letter she also enclosed two bookmarks, a postcard and a photo. So nice!

Then it's a letter from Marita in Norway. She made me hungry with the cupcakes envelope! :P

Lovely polar bear stamp (did you know I liked polar bears?)

She enclosed a pressed flower but unfortunately it didn't survive the journey... :(

On Wednesday I got a letter and a nice birthday card from Audrey in Germany...

... and a letter from Kate in Czech Republic

Look at that fun birthday card!

Last but not least, yesterday I got late Christmas mail from Ilga in Germany! (sorry the pic is a bit blurry :/)

Take a look on the lovely notepad she sent

And the Christmas card

And finally the stamps on her envelope:

That's all for the incoming! Yeah, I told you it was a lot of mail! Now let's see what I sent out.
My new semester at uni has just started so I don't have too much work yet, so I still have quite much time to write. Which is good because as you can see, my to reply pile has really grown up this week! ;)

I first wrote a letter to Bree in Malaysia

Then to Sara in Italy

And finally to Ramona in Germany

Three letters written by me this week - a really good number for a non-holidays week. I'm satisfied with my work :)

Hope you had a great mail week as well

Love, Tári

PS: Tomorrow is my blog's first birthday so I'll host a giveaway to celebrate it. Stay tuned! ;)

Happy birthday to meee! :D

Yay! It's finally the D-day, I can read all these letters that were waiting for me for so long! Surprisingly, I've been stronger than I thought I would be, as it's wasn't so hard in the end not to read letters for a whole month. I hid letters in a grocery bag, and this bag was also hidden under my shelf, so I hadn't the letters all the time under my eyes, and besides I've been busy lately, with Christmas, January exams, and catching up with the pending letters (those I received before I start saving letters for my birthday) So I haven't been too much tempted to open all these envelopes right away. And the waiting really was worth it, because I had the best birthday in my whole life! Look at this nice pile of mail I had to fill the 7304th day of my life ;)

First, a letter from Bree in Malaysia:

 Along with a Christmas card, because she sent it in December, when it was still time for Christmas stuff :)

Then a package from Sara in Italy. She sent a handmade Christmas card, as well as some peach tea :)

Then comes a letter from Ramona, very Christmas themed. She even wrote it on Christmas day!

There was a German sentence printed on the paper. I assume it means: "if you knew how long I needed for this you would never throw it away", though I may be mistaking as my German is quite rusty now :( Could a German speaker help me?

When I received this thick envelope from Maiju in Finland I wondered how many pages she wrote, because it was really, really fat... now I have the answer: 16 A4 pages! :D

From Nora in Norway :) I usually don't use face masks, but as she sent me one, I think I'll use it anyway.

Christmas/winter themed letter from Simona in Lithuania:

I really love the card she sent! *-*

Teresa in the USA sent me a package with sooooo many stamps on it! :O

Inside there was:

Christmas/birthday present: a pack of beautiful, vintage envelopes! Thank you so much, Teresa, I love them!

The letter was in a beautiful handmade envelope:

And finally, the letter, with the few items she included (a flyer from a bookshop, a birthday card and a sample of US Christmas stamps)

Another package comes next, this time from Andra in Romania:

The wrapping paper contains two letters sets, for a private swap we agreed on:

A postcard featuring the Bran castle (with snow, awww *-*)

And the letter, + a birthday card:

Letter from Ingrid in the Netherlands:

Finally, a package from Tanja in Germany! Her last letter to me got lost (it has never arrived to me before that a letter from Germany got lost! :( ), but hopefully this one made it here!

She sent me some letter paper as a Christmas/birthday present

and wrote her letter on beautiful winter themed paper!

Last but not least, a birthday card from my mother arrived today in the mail!

I had to smile when I saw the stamp on the envie... I used to be a huge rabbit fan when I was a child ;)

Wow! That definitely was a wonderful birthday! So I'm officially no longer a teenager now! I don't feel especially different because of that, however. But it's still a nice thought because it's been a long time since I didn't feel I was a teenager.

Love, Tári

7 things you might not know about me

via

Bubbles recently got a blog award that asked her to write 7 facts about herself and I found it really interested to read so it inspired me to write my own seven facts. Hopefully you'll be interested in getting to know the person behind the blog a little better ;)

1. I really love forests and woods. I somehow feel safe and relaxed there. Though I wouldn't like living lost in the middle of countryside because I like being able to reach places fast. But having a little wooden house surrounded by greenery only to spend my holidays would be a dream of mine.
2. I'm definitely not girly or feminine. I don't like pink, hardly ever wear dresses/skirts (I'm always wearing the same kind of clothes - jeans and pullovers), never use make up. I sometimes paint my nails though but not so often and I take it off after one or two days. I wish I were however, because I find girls that wear women clothes and a bit of make-up (a bit, not a lot!) the prettiest. But somehow, each time I tried looking more like a girl, I didn't like it. It just didn't look like me.
3. I don't really know what my inner age is. I'm biologically (soon) twenty but I don't think I belong to that generation at all. I always feel weird among people my age because I'm so different, we don't have the same likings, the same expectations... I sometimes feel I'm younger than my real age because my inner child is still strong (I find myself having great fun playing with toys or in playgrounds when I'm baby-sitting), yet some other times (most of the time, actually) I feel older than my real age. I somehow get along better with older people (aged 25-30) as I have more in common with them.
4. I often get strongly attached to characters when I'm reading a book. And I feel really sad when one die and/or when the book is over, meaning I have to leave them forever. That's why I prefer series, because then I spend more time with my favourite characters. But I also get even more attached to them and I feel even sadder when the series ends...
5. I am definitely a hoarder. I have hard time throwing anything, because I'm afraid I might need it one day, so my drawers and the boxes on my shelves are full of useless things (but who knows, they might become useful one day!). Though sometimes I catch "cleaning fevers" and when it happens, I can fill out at least 3 big dustbin bags with all my jerk.
6. I tend to reject all that is "trendy", and to like what no one usually likes. But at the same time I don't like it when people look at me weird, like "But how can you (not) like this?!" I want to be "normal" so that people don't notice me (there's nothing that makes me more uncomfortable than being the centre of everyone's attention), but at the same time I want to be different. There's a big paradox over here, isn't there? 
7. I'm not really into competitions, it doesn't interest me to be "the best" at something. And anyway, I believe that you can always find someone better than you. But I do like challenging myself. Like giving me goals to achieve, trying to beat my personal records, etc.

I hope you didn't fall asleep while reading it! 

Love, Tári