Two New Flickr Albums

I've added two new albums to my Flickr account to house my Florida and Thanksgiving cards. Since moving out of Florida I've been collecting more and more vintage Florida cards, plus I've been receiving more from Floridian Postcrossers. I've also added a request for Vintage and Old Florida postcards to my wishlist on my Postcrossing profile. If you're not a native Floridian, Old Florida is usually what locals call areas in Florida that reflect the state before its population boom. Even as recent as the 90s, Orlando was filled with cow pastures. I distinctly remember the smell of cow manure on my drive to Waterbridge Elementary on Central Florida Parkway. John Young had just been built and cut through cow pastures. Now, these cow pastures with resorts, shopping plazas, and neighborhoods.

Anyhow, if you'd like to view my Florida collection you can do so here.

My Thanksgiving collection is much smaller, but I did acquire a few this year. Those can be viewed here. I almost added them to my Christmas collection, since both holidays are often lumped together as the Holiday Season, but decided to honor both holidays with their own albums.

Welcome Back and Happy Anniversary!

And... we're back.

I'm back...

Are we/I talking about my/our self in the first person now? To be determined.

So, this is my first post since my longer than expected hiatus. But, I'm back up and running with a new scanner that I have yet to catch on fire with a candle and that hasn't been dropped, both things that actually happened to my old Canon (R.I.P). We've also moved out of state and are living with husband's parents, so I don't have a proper office area, so I have to carry my desktop and printer around the house and set them up anytime I want to blog... fun!! So, I may blog less, but when I'm actually in the mood to set up a pop-up office I'm just planning on making as many posts as possible and just scheduling them out. 

So, for right now my weekly updates will be suspended, but I'll still be showcasing postcards just in a different fashion. Probably. I'm winging it. Along with not having a proper office area, I also have a 15 hour day 4x a week... so... yeah. Well, maybe I'll still do my weekly post on one of my days off, IDK. 

Okay, so this past week was my 3rd anniversary being married to Chris. For this anniversary he got really creative and actually made me happy mail!!! I was so thrilled. I was somewhat expecting vintage postcards for my anniversary, since... and this is a safe space to say this because my husband doesn't read my blog... when he went shopping I followed him on my iPhone and I saw his location in Phoebus which is where all the antique shops are and where I've bought vintage postcards in the past. However, I did not expect him to make my gift look like happy mail and really he could have bought anything there, he actually got some of my Christmas presents at local antique shops as well which were two vintage brooches and an art deco perfume dispenser. 

Chris and I on Thanksgiving.

So, here's what I got:

The Envelope

Most impressive is that Chris was able to find vintage Florida stuff up here in Virginia and even in our small town, or at least the small town next to our small city. Two of the cards that he got me were of Bok Tower. Bok Tower Gardens is really a place that I love and cherish in Florida. For those of you who don't know, I grew up in Florida and just left after 31 years. In September we moved up here to Virginia, but I still have some nostalgia for Florida. 

Anyways, if you ever go to Florida I highly recommend visiting Bok Tower, it's off the beaten path and a little expensive (like $20 per adult, which is a bit much in my opinion for a garden, but it's nice and really large), but it's well worth the experience. If I could describe to you the energy around the tower... it's so peaceful. When it's "singing" aka a guy is playing the carillon inside of it, it's the most peaceful thing. The tower is on top of a hill, overlooking Lake Wales, which is like true blue country. It's amazing.

Here we are at Bok Tower:

He also got me this old timey photobook featuring vintage postcards of Orlando and Winter Park, of course I lived in Orlando my whole life and I have also lived in Winter Park, which honestly is still Orlando, but you can't tell people in Winter Park that because they are very uppity about their Winter Park addresses. For those in the Snailmail Community a fun fact about Winter Park is that it's home to Rifle Paper Co., some of you may have bought stationary and postcards from them or may be familiar with their stamp for USPS's 'Love' series. Also, my friend Josie works there and she's awesome :) Side note: she has a really cute baby.

Front

Back

I just realized my husband left the price on... lol! $4 what a steal, way to go Chris!

Here's what the inside looks like:

It's actually very tiny and would fit inside a wallet. My wallet is too full of old receipts, so, unfortunately, no room for it in there. Also, I just wouldn't want to ruin it since it's vintage and fragile.

Oddly enough, I also have the postcard featured on the front which I ordered off eBay not too long ago. It is from Lake Eola, which is the most iconic Central Florida park.

Just for fun here's my old apartment in Winter Park:

Via Google Earth

Moving on, I also got these really really old postcards that aren't even in color they're so old. It's an old postcard book of Parisian cards. It's so fragile, I'm really hesitant to open it too much.

He also got me a vintage postcard of Centennial Fountain located at the aforementioned Lake Eola. 

The sad thing is, high-rise condos have since replaced those wonderful historic homes in the background. In fact, all of Lake Eola is now surrounded by high rises for various businesses and condominiums.

He also stuffed some lovely teacup earrings inside the envelope. Which match the kettle ones I have.

Awesome, so I have a lot of fun things in the works, including:

• some postcard maps of the view cards and lighthouse cards I've received.
• getting together an Instagram just for swaps.
• penpals.
• i'd like to start partnering with other mail blogs and social media accounts, so if you're interested let me know!
• music posts with songs with snailmail-y lyrics or themes.
• and more!

Blog Updates

Greetings from Orlando, Florida, fellow snailmailers!

You may have noticed I deleted all previous posts. Well, I decided to re-vamp the old blog. Previously, I had simply posted scans of the postcards I've received, sometimes accompanied by a brief explanation and a scan of the stamps on the postcards. Well, I'm bored of that and it's not very engaging. I actually do the same thing on Flickr, so it's actually a bit redundant.

I have some new plans for the blog. First, to actually write more. I plan to write more about postcards and mail-related topics. Also, instead of posting every card that I receive, I am going to make a Friday Favorites list of my favorite received cards of the week and do the same for stamps. I have other ideas, stay tuned!