Incoming Mail November- Birthday /December - Christmas

November and December are busy months for letter writing, more importantly November is my birthday month on the 8th so I have oodles of mail coming in. It is now half way to December and still the birthday cards are coming in.  Thanks to everyone that sends religiously to me every year I LOVE YOU ALL.

Then we have Christmas and I love sending out Christmas cards and postcards as well.

This is the pile 4 inches or 100mm high.

I feel loved

Some have beautifully decorated envelopes which I will post later and some just have great penmanship. Bring back the old days of writing anytime. Texting just doesn't cut it

HAVE A GREAT CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR 

EDITED: 4 January finally opened the all up and read them on the barge to the mainland.

Postmark placement

I just wanted to bring to the world's attention the placement of postmarks lately that obliterates the most important parts of the address. I think it's only letters/cards from the USA, no other countries does this. 

UPDATE: I have found that it is AusPost that does this because I found a postcard from Russia with that postmark over the address. Thanks to a member in an online group I am on who did some digging online. 

This first one, unfortunately the address is posted in an unusual position on the right hand bottom corner and smack bang was the postmark right over it. Its very lucky that the postcode was visible which is the important part of our addressing here in Australia.

This next postcard, the postmark is smack bang over the postbox number. Luckily the sender wrote in green and the postcode is lower. I would love to see one of my letters that goes to the US and the placement of their postmark and if its the same as these.

There used to be a yellow strip stuck right on the bottom of the letter as well.

If you are wondering why sometimes your mail takes forever to get somewhere, this might be the reason, it gets tossed into the too hard basket to be dealt with later. 

So if you are posting from the US, please take into account where you place the address to avoid that postmark.

It must be a huge headache for postal workers to try and get letters/cards to their destination.

Here is a link to USA placement of address

This envelope was sent into the franking machine upside down so the square postmark landed 

on the top left hand corner otherwise it would have obliterated the postcode.

Some interesting sites about AusPost thanks to a member of one of the online groups I am a member of 

International Postcard Week Postcards

 I have made these limited edition cards for swapping.

Card 1 : Postcrossing Meetup

Card 2: Postboxes

Card 3: Covid Postbox

Card 4: Curlew

Card 5: Lighthouse

Lockdown simple menus from yesteryear and Postcrossing

I love this post from Down to Earth blog that I follow, its about affordable homemaking. She has a picture of a German Potato Pancake or Kartoffle Puffer. Reminds me of Potato Rosti-hubby's favourite.

There were a few recipes to follow:

The Spruce Eats

The Daring Gourmet

Foodal

Anyway Rhonda's suggested menus if you're not doing too well financially due to losing your job or being stood down:

• Tuna bake - is a mornay sauce with canned tuna, pasta and vegetables.
• Zucchini slice - you can use any vegetable for this. Caramelised onion slice is delicious.
• Salmon patties - the cheaper canned pink salmon is good for this.
• Boiled eggs and salad.
• Corned beef, cabbage and potatoes.
• Next day - corned beef hash with eggs.  My recipe here.
• Potato pancakes- my recipe is here
• Pumpkin or sweet potato or pea or grean bean risotto.
• Meatloaf - and lentil or chickpea version of meatloaf.  Spicy meatloaf recipe 
• Curried vegetables with poached eggs. - I bake the vegetables in the oven with a little oil, curry powder or paste, then poach eggs in another pan.
• Pea and ham soup.
• Vegetable soup with herb dumplings, made with beef bone broth.  When you make the broth, boil them a second time and add salt and pepper for a lovely beef tea.
• Lamb stew - using one lamb chop for flavour - and lots of vegies is very tasty and nutritious
• Spinach or silverbeet pie in filo pastry.  Recipe here.
• Homemade bread - search "bread" in my sidebar for recipes
• Rice pudding - ½ cup white rice with 2 ½ cups of milk, 1 tablespoon sugar and vanilla.  Cook slowly - excellent for breakfast.  
• Bread and butter pudding to use up bread or old hot cross buns.  Recipe here.
• Porridge.

2008 recipe links

50 Old School Aussie dinners

Talking about yesteryear, I came across this in Postcrossing, a treasure trove of letters found in an post office that couldn't be delivered for one reason or another "The Piggy Bank" . I love the handwriting, looks like everyone could master calligraphy.

150 years of postcards being posted

This craze that we all have, posting postcards all over the world to random people and to people we know is now 150 years old.

The history of postcards can you imagine it cost 1 penny per envelope to send, now in 2019 it cost us in Australia $3.20 (went up today) to post a postcard to the Northern Hemisphere, $2.30 to Asia.

Postcrossing celebrates

Putting together the Postcard Exhibition

Postcrossing Meetup Macleay Island 27 April 2019

I organise a Postcrossing Meetup today on Macleay Island Waters Edge Restaurant 

that is situated at the Bowls Club.

We had a great time. 11 in all attended, a great turn out to say the least.

They all arrived by ferry, well except 2 who had trouble finding parking on the mainland and missed the designated 10.30 ferry that the others caught, no hard feelings they managed to catch the island's SMBI Little Bus. The courtesy bus from the Bowls Club picked everyone up and delivered them to the restaurant.

It started at 11am and ended 3 hours later. Everyone enjoyed their meals, at least I think so as no one complained.

We signed 1070 postcards, kudos to those that didn't have stamps and had to write on every card. Here are some wonderful exercises for your fingers for the next meetup.

Our story will be featured in the Friendly Bay Islander June Edition

Table all set up ready to go

Busy, busy, busy writing and stamping their Postcrossing ID's onto postcards

From left to right:

Sumayah (Sumayah787) the youngest postcrosser in the group, Bridget (BridgetLarsen) hostess, 

Russell (Russell_Turner), Robert, Duncan and Michael (ring ins), Fiona Mirfi), Jacqui (j4c7), 

Lisa (Ozeeyore), Vanessa (nephthys51), Joanne (Bayaan_Brisbane)

Isn't she absolute gorgeous? Sumayah is holding her troll which she brought on the trip

My lunch was prawns in caesar salad

My favourite dessert Creme Brulee

Postcrossing Meetup Cards

CARD 1

CARD 2

I will be hosting a Postcrossing Meetup on Macleay Island this year. Hopefully many Postcrossers will venture onto a ferry and come and visit our beautiful South Moreton Bay islands.

This is the meeting card I had made of a picture I took looking at the Sunset from the Waters Edge Restaurant at the Bowls Club.

Postcrossing Meetup Alexandra Hills 31 Aug 2019

Postcard Recipe

I received this postcard from Postcrossing and would love if someone could translate it for me so i can cook it

Mystery Postcard Received

I received this postcard and have no idea what its for. I dont have a contact to reply to.I have sent a search party out via Postcrossing but they can't locate it either.

So if this is your postcard or you know of this person please send me a message so I can thank you/her or register it.

WOYWW 368 Postcrossing Meeting Toowoomba

A desk of a different kind. Last weekend we had a Postcrossing Meeting here in Queensland, Toowoomba to be exact, that is 2 hours inland drive from Brisbane city....and yes I made the drive myself. I was scared to be stuck in the predicted storms that devastated areas around Queensland and NSW but luckily I missed it. So all those are postcards we were signing for each other to swap with other postcrossers

Robert and Russell Turner, Greg and wife Lewis, Vanessa Crouch and yours truly. We met at the Shamrock Hotel and had a wonderful meal and share lots of postcrossing stories.

Below is the card I designed for the meeting

Vanessa designed the postcard below for the meeting

Joining up with Julia's Stamping Ground and linking up with 

Lunch Lady Jan while Julia is recuperating

FR-67824-Elvis Rocks

Gotta share this postcard I received from France  through Postcrossing of my favourite idol Elvis

Postcrossing Meeting Cards

Members of Postcrossing organise meetings or get togethers where we meet other members and sign postcards for swapping with members around the world. Some of these postcards are specially created and are very nice. I have taken a liking to them and started collecting them when i have had one to trade with other meeting attendees. This card was made for the meeting I attended last year. 

In June 2016 Vanessa and I are organising a get together in Toowoomba Queensland and we have both made a meeting card each. Mine is created with words of anything postcrossing related

Vanessa has created this one which depicts the gorgeous Japanese Gardens in Toowoomba, of course the real card is without the thumb in the left hand corner

Postallove Greetings From Cards

There is a collection craze on Postcrossing for Postallove created Greetings From Cards the brainchild of Ewa Slocinska. I would love to visit her shop one day but alas it is a long way to go for postcards LOL

There is a new collection of Continent Cards out:

So since I joined Postcrossing over a year ago I have loved to swap these cards and now I have these in my collection: