A postcard I made was featured at Letters and Journals! *grins* It's the top one with the quote.

Jackie also links to a fun mail challenge... A Month of Letters, hosted by Mary Robinette Kowal.

The challenge is to send out at least one peice of mail every day the post runs in February.

ha. It's actually surprisingly easy to write a few postcards every evening. But I have not gotten back into the habit since the chaos of the holidays. So a month long challenge is just what I need!

Tag: january, mailings

Last december I signed up for Amnesty International's Write for Rights. I took on two different cases and wrote a total of five letters: two letters of protest to government officials and three handmade notes of encouragement.

It felt good, trying to conquer evil with some letter writing. I wanted to continue, so I signed up for the Urgent Action Network.

It's a little bit different from the Write for Rights project. They get new cases every day, I don't know how many hundreds there are to choose from... whereas the Writeathon only focused on 15. When you join the Urgent Action Network, you can choose how often they send you email alerts. I signed up for one a week; they usually come at the end of the week and I have been working on them over the weekend.

The other difference is that the Network does not provide you with prepared sample letters that you can print out. The Urgent Action case sheet gives you information on the situation and tells you who to write and what to ask for, but the letter writing is all yours.

My first Urgent Action was actually an email petition that I just had to sign. But the next two actions were for snail mail letters of protest.

It does take a while to read through the case sheet and then figure out what I want to say in my letter. The letter is sent to several different people in the country's government, and a copy is sent to their embassy in Washington DC.

So, in the end I have a handful of letters to send out. And a sense of having done something good in the world.

Tag: january mailings

The new colours arrived in the US this week... and of course I had to buy them immediately! The 12 new colours are the named ones above, the colours in parentheses are for my own comparisons of family colours or close colours.

I really like all of them, except E89 Pecan (dark brown is dark brown, I didn't really need another one) and BG90 Gray Sky (which is too pale for my liking).

I just updated my marker count over at my Copic Color profile... I now have 108 sketch markers (out of 358) and 4 wide markers (out of 36)! yay.

And the word from Copic is that these will be the LAST new colours made for a while. They have been coming out with 12 new colours every year for six years now, and have filled up a 72 pc set with them (the Sketch 72E). And honestly, I'm glad... I'm tired of having to re-arrange the shelves in the warehouse to fit in the new colours every stinkin' year! ;)

So. I wish I could update my Copic profile with some actual art. But I've not been doing anything creative at all. Will try to work on that soon...

Tag: january, art

Goodbye 2011. It could have been better, but at least I survived it! :)

∞  2011 turned out to be the Year of the Postcard. *laughs*

I discovered Swap-Bot, and did 18 postcard trades there, plus one package trade. I didn't do much at PostCrossing (currently at 251 pcs) but I did find a wonderful pen pal! The Vegan Pen Pal Project had some rough times, but I think it's back on track. I am hosting my own postcard exchange at GoodReads, which has had some interesting times but it's mostly happy.

My monthly postcard turned into a monster as I attempted to send it to everyone in my address book. 50 postcards a month is fun and all, but impossible to keep up!

∞  "Read Like Crazy" was a 2011 resolution. I did! in 2009 I read 30 books. In 2010 I read 38 books. And for 2011, I read 45! Yay reading!

∞  "Put real effort into the Garden Plot." Well, I did put more effort into our garden than I ever have before... but a lack of planning plus a lot of procrastination on top of the horrible weather, resulted in disappointment.

I would like to try again, tho. More flowers in 2012, at the very least! :)

∞  My other resolution for 2011 was to give amigurumi -- crocheting stuffed animals -- a try. I haven't yet. And I didn't crochet much at all. eh: I might be done with string projects.

As for the coming year, I would like to work on my little procrastination problem...

During December, with all the craziness before my trip to visit my family, I had so much to do that I knew I would not be able to do it all. I had my list, and each time I was deciding on what to do next, I asked myself "what's important?" and went from there.

I've got a few stacks of books that I've bought but haven't read yet... and I've always said that I can't die until I get them all read. ha. I even have a stack of unread books I'm saving because I know I'm going to love them. I'm saving them, for what? a rainy day? the end of the world?

Now, granted I am going to need some books for the end of the world. But what if a bus squishes me before we get there?! What if I get mad cow disease, and I can't read before I die?!

So. I'm going to work on my weird procrastination thing, by asking myself What's Important? and then going from there!

Read my soon-to-be favorite books. Treat my apartment like a home, instead of a temporary way-station. Treat the garden plot as an extension of my home. Figure out a new system for postcards and letters, so I can reply in a timely manner.

Other important things: drawing and doing creative stuff. always responding with kindness. taking care of myself and being happy.

And Most Important! Being Vegan!

Tag: january