Christmas idleness

 I hope you're enjoing the weekend:)

This and that and Merry Christmas

I vanished. I had vacation. I was sick, tired, busy. I was writing letters. I was reading books. I needed a break from blogging. I am not the most regular blogger anyway:P But I am back to wish to all who celebrates Christmas - Happy Holidays and to those who don't but have free time - Happy Free Time=)

I haven't painted any envelopes lately but I had the lovely daisy parchment envelopes. The only problem is they're transparent but on the other hand I think it makes a nice effect.

Two letters to me got lost:_( Which made me very sad and nervous about letters on their way to and from me:S I hope it won't happen again:(

On a happier note, I bought new stamps, yay:D

These are this years' Christmas stamps in Poland.

I made few Christmas cards but quit it quickly as I'm not good at it at all:S I decided to show them here anyway because someone was curious about them=)

I am listening much to Marilyn Manson nowadays as I'm reading his biography but it's not the best Christmas theme I guess:P But in my last post TheSnailMailer suggested a very nice singer - Alison Krauss. Thanks:) She has a sweet voice.

I've also found a secret in Post Secret that I like and sais what I think as well.

Therefore, I sent Christmas cards to my friends whenever they celebrate it or not. I would be happy of any good wishes from whichever occasion myself so I don't get the whole offending thing... good wishes have only good intentions behind them, right? Make love, not war;) Merry Christmas!:)

Was it her or not?

Today nothing connected with penpalling. When I was going to work in the morning I passed a lady on the bridge and our eyes met. Was it my Polish teacher from primary school or not? I had doubts so I said nothing although 'hello' was on the tip of my tongue. Some people's features are so undeniable that you'd recognize them after years without batting an eyelid while an image of others covers with mist as time goes by... it would't hurt to greet a stranger in the street but before I made my mind to open my mouth the lady already passed and went her way. But a memory of my Polish teacher came back to me. She was one of my favourites if not the favourite one in that school. I always liked reading so she liked me. We could get extra points if we read some additional books that weren't our lecture. We just had to write about it in a special notebook and give it to her to check. Of course I used that possibility. We wrote many esseys in her classes but she always gave interesting topics. As a part of discussing some lectures, we were performing short sketches or recording 'radio programs'. She was very encouraging and my head was full of stories at her times. When I stopped having classes with her, I stopped writing... My high school teacher was her total contradictory and I stopped enjoing Polish classes. I even think she was the reason to turn in other direction and choose the studies that weren't ment for me. I could say many bad things about that woman but I won't because today my memories are with her predecessor, who helped me develop my imagination and love for words - Ms. K.

Changing the topic, I discovered a new singer that made me have eargasm;P Seeing that he doesn't have many views in YouTube I assume he's not utterly popular... why?! Let me introduce my new music god - Andrew Bird:)

A postcard from... New Zealand

This lovely postcard from Kiwiland I got few months ago in a postcard swap in one of the penpalling forums:)

Uneasyness

Do you ever experience a feeling of uneasyness, anxiety without a reason?

Comic envelope

One day I found some comics in a closet. I was reading those when I was a kid regularly. Now when I foud them I thought they'd be good to decorate an envelope:)

A postcard from... Oxford, Great Britain

 

I got this postcard when I was 16 years old. I met a girl who sent it a year earlier, also in England, on a language course but the next year I couldn't go. I kept the postcard and a friend too;)

Long vs short

Which are better - long or short letters? I've found this being a controversial subject in penpalling world. And I'm not going to write about it because to each their own, we all have different preferences and definitions of what's long what's not. That's not my point. But I've always in such discussions seen the argument "long letters can be boring too". And I'm always astonished with that assumption. I have a feeling that people have in mind "diary entries" that some confuse with letters. But that can be both in case of long as well as short letters. However if a letter is a letter - that is discussion, in which people refer to the points made by the other party, how can long be boring? I have never ever got a boring long letter maybe that's why it's difficult for me to understand. I had discussions on so many subjects with my penpals: books, history, travels, feelings, vegetarianism, beliefs, death, psychological things, views on any possible topics plus daily life as well. It takes a lot of space on paper. But how much information about someone is that! Not only what they read but why they do or don't like the book, not only where they've been but all details about the place and trip, not only what they believe in but why, not only what they've done but also how they felt about it. Details, reasons, feelings. Tonnes of words, sheets and sheets of paper, new questions and new ideas. Long. Boring? No way! I refuse to accept "long letters can be boring too" argument. In case someone who prefers short letters gets angry with this post, I'll say it's not a post against short letters, everyone knows best from their own experience if they make good friends with someone and have interesting conversations regardless the lenght of their letters. It's just to underline the fact that long letters aren't day descriptions and those who are only interested in long letters are not some arrogant people that set rules about the lenght of letters. They are not the people who write what they ate for dinner and what shoes they bought last Saturday but discuss this and that. In this case can it be boring to know as much as possible about a friend?

Halloween card

For my American penpal =)

Get wild #2

Sent long time ago so no surprises for my penpals... for my blog readers maybe no surprise either as I have already posted photos of some of mine "wild envelopes"... so nothing new, ol' boring stuff:P

A postcard from... Mexico City, Mexico

I got this postcard not recently, but some time ago from my Mexican friend. It shows UNAM - the National Autonomous University of Mexico and one of the most awsome buildings that I've seen - UNAM library! Isn't it fantastic?=D

A giveaway goes to...

It's past 12 which means the day is over and I could close the givaway 'contest'.

First, I wrote the names on a pieces of paper.

Then I put them in a box.

I closed the box, shook it, and drew a piece of paper on which was written...

So, the givaway goes to Maria from Penpals, Postcards and Swaps.

:)

Just a thought

Do you think words have colors?

Fonchito y la luna by Mario Vargas Llosa

I had a bad day. So what did I do to improve my mood? The answer is simple if someone knows me a little - I went to the bookstore. I was wandering among bookshelves and stopped by L. There stood rows of Mario Vargas Llosa beautiful Polish editions. He's one of my favourite writers. But unlike other of his political or humorous erotic novels, this short story he wrote for children. It's very short, it doesn't even take ten minutes to read it all. But it's so charming:)

It's about a little boy who likes a little girl in his school. He asks her if he could kiss her in the cheek but she sais that she'll allow him to do it only if he gives her the moon. Impossible?;)

My problems didn't disappear but a smile appeared on my mouth when I read this magical tale:) Like someone gave a moon to me too:)

Hearty CD swap

I did a CD swap with lovely tanuki and I got from her a wonderful CD with music of artists that I never heard of. Artists from all over the world singing in many different languages. I enjoyed whole CD but I cannot present all songs here. So I'll share my top 3^^

Number 1 is a song of Susheela Raman with an influence of Tamil music. She's my new love now!^^ Unfortunatelly it seems she doesn't have official video of the song... at least I couldn't find it in YouTube. But the song is so beautiful that it doesn't need anything more than sound;)

On the second position is a song of a Russian singer, Алёна Апина (Alena Apina). I am learning Russian so you can guess I love the sound of the language. This unfortunatelly doesn't mean I understand all the lyrics...yet!;)

And in the end, although the decision was hard because there were so many interesting songs to chose from, let me show you a Singaporian band that mixes Malay music with hip hop  - Ahli Fiqir. I generally like the mixes of styles so it caught my attention:)

Okay, a blog is not a YouTube so I won't post more songs here:P

One more big thank you to tanuki for introducing these artists to me, most probably I wouldn't discover them alone:)

Canada envelope

For my Canada loving penpal =)

A postcard from... Edinburgh, Great Britain

In the meantime when I was in Prague, my friend went to Edinburgh and she sent me this beautiful postcard with a view of Edinburgh Castle and the Old Town:) I love the pinkish violet colors:)

And I remind about a givaway. It's till 10th October so only 4 days more:) Thank you to all who commented about the envelopes so far:) I am really grateful for your compliments <3

Been there, done that... Vilnius, Lithuania

Having a summer house halfway between Warsaw and Vilnius, I've been planning to go to Lithuanian capital for many years... butin the end I always stayed in my summer house and didn't go further. In the last weekend of September I finally made my plan work, I went to Vilnius by bus from Warsaw and spent two lovely days at our neighbours. Look what I've seen and what I ate together with a friend who went with me:)

 

A giveaway

I had some time, no letters to write and in effect I painted  quite a few envelopes. I haven't been blogging a whole month and it's been my 'blog anniversary' in the meantime so I thought I'll make a little givaway:) If you'd like to get the envelopes just follow me and write in a comment that you WANT them, not just if you like them or not because then I won't know if to include you in a 'lottery'. The deadline is 10th October, I'll prepare lots with your names then and draw one. I hope someone will find them nice enough, haha. And good luck:)

Polish stamps

Okay, so I bought letter scale, now it's time for stamps! I bought some awsome ones from the Internet site of our post office services. I couldn't get these stamps in my post office as it's small one and they don't have big choice. So I was really happy to lay my hands on these beauties today^.^ Hohoho^^

A postcard from... Phi Phi Islands, Thailand

In the meantime when I work, with no perspective of vacation, with rain outide the window I got this postcard from a friend who went for vacation with her fiancee to Thailand. Pretty depressing, huh?;P No, seriously, I'm happy for the postcard:) My time will come one day too:)

Been there, done that... Prague, Czech Republic

Since I write here about my passions, let me introduce my biggest one, which is travelling! Unfortunatelly, I can't travel as much as I'd like to but I go somewhere every now and then. This summer I had no vacation but there was one longer weekend in August due to holiday and for these three days I went to our neighbouring country - Czech Republic to visit their beautiful capital, Prague:) I was once in Prague but that was many many years ago, on a school trip so I didn't remember it well. Now I went again and I've seen wonders;)