Going Postal: Just in time for the last collection

So, hello again. For the second time today.

I promise I make a habit of posting twice daily, but I didn't want to cram in all my emotional outpourings into my previous post, it just wouldn't have been dignified. Plus ... all the tears would have made those lovely rainbow stamps a bit soggy ...

And now, sitting here with a big blank post all to myself ... I really don't know where to begin ...

How about ...

A few things I've learned during this series:

• Pinterest is going to become so useful for joint creative projects such as Going Postal, especially seeing as how not everyone needs an account to be able to join in.
• My close blogging friends are amazingly supportive of my whims and adventures in blogland!
• My wider blogging community truly is filled with postal-loving crafters ... just as I'd suspected! 
• There'll be fewer security envelopes being thrown away from now on ... 

A few things I'm grateful for:

• The number of you who blogged a Going Postal post of your own. Thanks You! You filled-up that Pinterest board with style!; 
• The people who offered giveaway prizes. You're such a generous lot!
• The people who've left comments and re-pinned one another's work.

A few things I'm definitely going to do again:

• Something almost identical to Going Postal ... but with a different theme. Probably in the New Year. 
• Be brave and run with my "Mmmm, maybe I might ... "- style schemes and plans whenever I can!
• Ask you all a question every now and again ...outright ... no messing ... just a "So ... tell  me .....?" question from time to time. 

Because the answers you've all been leaving on the posts where I've asked a question have been one of my favourite things to happen in almost 3 years of blogging!

If you didn't catch them - they were the comments left on 2 giveaway posts where I first asked about the unusual occupations of someone you know and then who you'd like to write a letter to and why.

Between the two categories you've had me enthralled! I've loved the glimpses into your world-beyond-the-blog and you've had me both laughing out loud and fighting back tears.

Something I always try to remember, when going about the business of life, when trying not to rush to judgements and treat people fairly is that everyone has their story. Everyone has a history, a network of events and moments and relationships unique to them which, usually, has to be held  beneath the surface just to allow us to get on with our day-to-day living.

But everyone also likes to tell that story when given a chance. And you sure do have one to tell, don't you?

Thank you for sharing all those touching details about who you'd like to write a letter to and why. Isn't it interesting how so many of you have given similar responses? It's like the author Maya Angelou says: "We are more alike than we are unalike".

And whoever would've thought that that would be the biggest thing to have come out of a series about postal ephemera!

Maybe it all turned into a joint and unexpected nostalgia trip for us.

• There were all those memories of writing and receiving handwritten letters 'once upon a time'.
• There were the remembered joys of snipping off an interesting stamp from an 'exotic' country when we were young. 
• There were the sudden recollections that there were postcards, letters and stamp collections still in our houses ... somewhere ... and so many of you searched for them ... and found them and got reacquainted with stamps ... and memories.
• And there were those of you who've decided to pass on your love of snail mail to your 21st cenury children or who've joined in a post-swapping scheme to re-awaken your childhood excitement at what might just land on your doormat any given day.

 So .. thanks for joining me when I went postal. You were great company.

Now let me go and break open a new notebook so I can scribble down my plans for next time ...

Julie x

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• Blogging business-as-usual will no doubt resume this week sometime.
• I'll leave the full list of Going Postal posts in the righthand sidebar for another month. After that you can use the search box at the top left of the screen or my 'Filed Away' section, if you need to refer back to anything.
• Here's the Going Postal Pinterest board - for you to check out the latest and last additions [unless anything else comes in before midnight!].
• The Docrafts giveaway remains open until Thursday 18th Aug 2011.
• I'm hoping to put together the first in a series of short, focussed, creative classes very soon and I hope some of you will join me.
• Thanks, see you next week.