Hola! Bonjour! Salut! Zdravo!

I registered at www.postcrossing.com. It’s a site that helps you swap postcards with people across the world.  I have high hopes that this will be a great summer geography lesson for the kids.  We’ll put up a world map on the wall, mark in one color the countries we receive from and another color the countries we send to.  We’ll look up the country on the internet and maybe even learn to say “hello” in their native language.  And we will do all of this with no whining or fussing or fighting over who got to put the dot last time and who’s turn it is to put the dot this time.  Yes, it will be a summer learning experience we will all enjoy!

Or it will follow a more realistic path of being really cool for the first three or four postcards and then quickly spiral into a tantrum laden episode of “Hey Mommy!  Isn’t it my turn this time?  Tell him it’s MY TURN!!! He did it last time!  I know he did!  Hey Mommy!!!”.  And all of that fun will last until Mike bellows ”If you don’t do something with all of these postcards, I’m going to throw them in the trash!”.

I think if I were a teacher and didn’t actually have to live with my kids and referee these arguments, this might be a really cool classroom project.  In any event, we have received our first 5 addresses to send postcards to.  Our mission tomorrow morning is to find postcards with some local flair to send off.  Oh my, I didn’t even consider the fun family bonding experience we’ll all have with a Saturday morning field trip to both the store that (I hope) sells postcards and also the post office to buy the postage for these internationally bound gems.  Gosh I’m glad I found that website.

On a very loosely related tangent, I’m also a member at www.paperbackswap.com and have been thoroughly enjoying it!  I’m a book addict and this is helping me resist the urge to buy the latest release every time I go to Wal-Mart or Target.  I also really love it because I’m able to swap audio books, too.    I just wish that people wanted my books as much as I want theirs.  I have boxes and stacks sitting here, staring at me every day, begging for me to send them off to someone.  Oh wait … no, that’s not the books … it’s Mike begging me to get rid of them!

Me (collector) + Him (purger) = Disharmony