Mailbox Monday #8 (on Tardy Tuesday...apparently...)

A little grace, folks--a little grace...I bookended last week with ridiculous headaches both on Monday and Friday, so blogging was simply not a priority for me. But, here we are back again--a day late but nonetheless, still here. And the mail continues to trickle in little by little...

 

Last week's highlights--letters from England, Tasmania, and here in the states: PA, TX, and a super cool postcard from Florida--which has a funny story to it that I'll share in a minute...

But first--a couple more letters that arrived yesterday from CA and OK--I love Tracy's

gelli plate envies, beautiful!

Okay--postcard story. Last month I posted a Month of Letters challenge and had a nice response of people who wanted to play along, left me their addresses and I mailed out postcards to them during the month long challenge. The first postcard I'd sent out came back to me two weeks later. I hesitate to put my return address on postcards for this very reason--the brilliant post office employees are easily confused. But, being as these were new friends, I wanted to let them know where the cards had traveled from, and so wrote clearly "FROM:" with my address, tiny, at the bottom of the card by my signature hoping this would clue the postal peeps into NOT returning the cards to me. All of the other cards I sent last month managed to be delivered (at least, I haven't gotten any of those back...I suppose they could be floating in Post Office Purgatory somewhere...) So, I scribbled out my return address, jotted a quick apology for the delivery delay, slapped another stamp on this card (which was already above the regular postcard rate since it was heavy cardboard, too stiff for what's considered 'machinable' mail--increasing the rate from the thirty-four postage card rate to the standard first class rate of forty-nine cents, and now costing ninety eight cents for this second attempt at delivery:

Return addy scribbled out

A quick apology, double stamped

And....the post office RETURNED it to me AGAIN!!! Even WITHOUT my return address on it...for realz. So...at this point, I had come across Roc in a faith journaling group I belong to, messaged her quickly to let her know I hadn't forgotten she had signed up for the Month of Letters challenge and that I did indeed mail her a postcard, yadda yadda yadda....and that I would try one more time to send it out to her--in an envelope!!! Which, also non-machinable because of the thick postcard inside would cost an extra twenty-one cent surcharge--AND another first class stamp...this postcard that should've cost thirty-four cents to mail, now cost $1.68--but it finally made it!! And that super cool postcard in the pic above is from Ms. Roc--and I love it!

 

Finally the post office managed to get it right!!

The life and times of mail today...