PostCrossing: Netherlands

I received this today from Anne in the Netherlands. 

The message translates as: "More people must be smiling".

ID: NL-116851

Postcard: Dublin, Ireland

I received this yesterday from Josine in Ireland as a thank you for a postcard I sent her. My first postcard from Ireland!

PostCrossing: USA

I received this yesterday from Lisa in Georgia, USA!

ID: US-290856

PostCrossing: Kansas City, Missouri

I received this yesterday from Barbara in Missouri. 

ID: US-288511

PostCrossing: Düsseldorf, Germany

I received this today from Ragna in Germany! It's of Dusseldorf's city hall. 

ID: DE-240247

Postcrossing: Vienna, Austria

I received this today from a PostCrosser in Austria! 

ID: AT-24440

Postcrossing: Viljandi, Estonia

I received this on Friday from Kristiina in Estonia. It's the first card I've received from Estonia in nearly 2 years! 

ID: EE-35347

Postcard: Edmonton, Alberta

(Apologies for the poor quality. I had to take a picture of it instead of scanning.)

I received this from my mum earlier this week. She was in Edmonton last week. 

Postcard - ' Boy! Have We Been Doing the Town!'

Message on back:

California

Jan 1960

Hi Folks

Just a card to say Hello from the sunny south, however it has rained every since we arrived. had a wonderful plane trip down. got to see the old [illegible] yesterday, and around to the mexican part of the city and the oil wells. Painting fence tomorrow and Knox Berry Farm tues. 

Funny to see everything so green although this rainy weather so you have to wear a sweater. will be staying for another week. see you next summer.

[Sender's names illegible]

Postmarked: January 11, 1960

Postcard: 'I Don't Care What Becomes of Me'

Ha ha, lucky fellow!

No message on back. 

Postcard: 'Vous croyez avoir des troubles!'

'You think you've got troubles!'

No message on the back, but it's from 1967. 

Postcard: 'The music gets me going when your arm's around!'

Message on back (all spelling, grammar, and punctuation left as is):

Helo Cary How are you and [illegible] getting along. 

How is the Buffalo you know has he chared you lately how is Maggie and [illegible] to tell him i sent me Best [illegible]

for a fast ride to Lennie w Toronto where he sent me [illegible] Night Gin Dil

Postmarked: May 8, 1918. 

Postcard: "That's my MERRY WIDOW HAT."

Message on back (all spelling, grammar, and punctuation left as is):

Dear Auntie  send paper for one year to Edi let - me know if you receive it all well love to all from your loving nephew Tom

Postmarked: July 8, 1908

My NaNoWriMo Novel In a Nutshell

Main characters:

Victoirette - snotty brat and oldest sister. Named so because her parents thought she'd be a boy. Lives in Paris.
Nathalie - second oldest sister and believes she's right all the time. If she were in a certain BBC comedy taking place in WWII France, she'd be nearly all the French characters. Lives in Cayeux-sur-mer. 
Antoinette - youngest and super multi-talented. A golden girl, she probably farts out kittens and rainbows. Lives in Lille.


GERMANY: *invades France*
FRANCE: Oh no! 

VICTOIRETTE: My husband hasn't come home from battle, therefore he is dead and totally not in a POW camp so I will screw some of the German officers because they are winning!

NATHALIE: I just joined the resistance and pretend to be courteous to the Germans to get information out of them as I hide their original and forged paintings of the Fallen Madonna With the Big... Tracts of Land by van Klomp because the author is totally ripping off a certain BBC comedy taking place in WWII France. 

ANTOINETTE: My piano teacher was just arrested and deported because he is Jewish and now I can't practise any more. How annoying. At least I can still practise violin, harp, clarinet, flute, opera singing, writing, painting, carpentry, etc etc etc, because I AM IRRITATINGLY AWESOME AND TALENTED. Oh yeah, and I've shot a couple Germans because they said hi to me once and totally ruined my morning. Plus I'm sending my sisters chapters of my soon-to-be BEST.SELLING.NOVEL. because they get first glance at God on paper. 

WAR: *goes on*

ALLIES: *are totally winning now*

PLOT: *is dead*

VICTOIRETTE: I hate the Germans because they are losing and I love the Allies because they are winning! Yay Brits, Canadians, and Americans!

NATHALIE: I have so many k-nockwurst sausages containing forged and original paintings of the Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies by van Klomp, the Cracked Vase with the Daisies by van Gogh, a Louis IV cuckoo clock, and various radio equipment to keep in touch with England in my cellar, plus a pair of British airmen who can't get back to England because I keep hatching hair-brained ideas! Oh yeah, and I hate my older sister because she's a slut. 

ANTOINETTE: The Germans took my piano, wtf are they going to do, sing lullabies to the Allies? Have already picked out my outfit to wear when we are liberated and I am going to marry the first soldier I see. I have also composed seventeen songs and thirty-four tunes on my violin and I haven't decided which one to play yet, so I'm just going to play all of them because I'm awesome and everyone knows it and they'll all listen to ME!


GERMANS: *flee*

ALLIES: *WIN*


VICTOIRETTE: Someone tattled on me and told the Allies that I slept with German soldiers and now they're shaving my head! *cry* And then my husband showed up which was a total shock to me but it turned out he was living right next door, but had dyed his hair from dirty blonde to a bit more blonde and I totally didn't recognize him because I was too busy cavorting with Germans. IF ONLY HE HAD DISGUISED HIMSELF AS A NAZI, what a bastard. 

NATHALIE: British airmen still can't get home, therefore I will marry them and then we can all live happily ever after with various paintings by old Dutch masters, a cuckoo clock, and a radio we will never need. Also, I am a hero because I resisted the Germans most of the time, except for when I had to bribe information out of them which I totally used against them and therefore am still a hero even though my brain is rattled from all the explosives we kept storing and we may still have some left. *BOOM* Yep.. .

BITS OF NATHALIE: *scatter across three miles*

ANTOINETTE: How annoying, all the Allied soldiers are either hideous or already married. WTF, don't they know they're SUPPOSED to look like Cary Grant and be single? What the hell kind of army are they running? No, seriously, go back and try again. I met Nazis more good looking. Pffft. Jerks. 



AUTHOR: And somehow, I managed to write over 150,000 words of this. Imagine how bad THAT version is. Especially when I'm not even halfway done, but still have the ending written. Also, how many times does CBC have to run that stupid Enterprise "Sounds expensive!" commercial because it's getting really fucking annoying, but yay Leafs for winning and yay Canucks for winning so far and now I'm going to go because I can no longer type properly and have to keep going back to fix typos.

P.s. - The aforementioned BBC comedy taking place in WWII is 'Allo 'Allo! and I have no shame in stealing their storyline for my word count. 

Postcard: Rock Island Light House, Thousand Islands, NY

Message on the back:

before dinner

Wed. 11/17

Dear mother - 

I am having a good time here. Went to a church supper last night. Jessie and I were playing crowns(?) a while ago. Got home about seven o'clock last night, so had a good sleep. I don't know what we'll do this afternoon. Uncle's pony is a nice one. 

Gordon

Postmarked April 11, 1917

Postcard: "What You Feel Like When You're In Love"

Message on the back:

June 15th

What do you think of this card. Is that how you felt? Do you still feel silly when the moon shines out? I do. I haven't seen the hair pins scattered around yet & I haven't my hair bobbed either. 

Irma

Sent to Mr. Lesley R., Postmarked June 16th, 1925 or 1926.

Postcard: "Early Bird Catches the Worm"

I bought this at a coin and collectables shop downtown. They have a fantastic selection of old postcards, but more expensive than Attic Books. I bought a bunch (17) so I'll be sharing all of them one by one. 

Message on back (all spelling, grammar, and punctuation left as is):

Well Percy, how is things going with you I suppose you were at some of the Xmas Trees, I would of liked to go but I had a better Time (?) Xmas. Write and let me know how every thing is over there. 

from your Friend

Harold R.

Postmarked January 24th, 1910. 

Postcard: Hong Kong

The Duk Ling Tourist junk and the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre on the left.

After having sailed the South China sea for more than 25 years, it was lovingly restored in the 1980s to her original classic design. Today, it is the last sailing junk in Hong Kong. 

I received this yesterday from a friend of my mum's who went on a three-week vacation to Singapore, Thailand, Laos, and Hong Kong. 

NaNoWriMo has been won!

At some point this morning, I reached my personal goal of 100,000 words! YAY!! *confetti and cookies all around!*

My word count now is 106,860. 

I'm going to leave it at that for now, but I'm going to go back and do some editing. I'll submit the unedited version as my word count for the month, but the edited part will be in a separate file. 

My hands hurt. I feel like I can no longer think coherent thoughts, so this will have to be a short entry today. 

NaNoWriMo updates...

I haven't done much writing for the past couple days. My word count is currently at 51167. I suppose the big sprint to 50K on the weekend exhausted me! Not that that's a bad thing or anything. I've reached the NaNo goal already. Now to reach my personal goal off 100K! 

I'm going to use up the next few days for research. My NaNo novel is about three sisters in German-occupied France. I was originally going to set it during WWI, but I bumped it up to WWII just because I know more about it. At least, in general. My knowledge of France during WWII is limited to episodes of "Allo, Allo!"

The library felt like it only had limited resources regarding France in WWII, but I did take out two books on it: France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944 by Julian Jackson and Occupation: The Ordeal of France, 1940-1944 by Ian Ousby. Occupation is turning out to be an invaluable source because it has a nice chronology of events in the back of the book for quick reference. 

Last Wednesday while downtown, a friend and I went to Attic Books and I found a few books on WWII in their 'Bargain basement' as well as a couple on the main floor that I can use for research. None are specifically for France during WWII, but most are about WWII anyway. I have a thing for that particular time, so I welcome books on the subject! 

I've started writing a bit of the ending. I don't want to say what might happen in case I jinx it. 

Keep writing, fellow NaNo-ers/Wrimos! (whichever you prefer to be called)

Postcard: NaNoWriMo

Oh gosh, it's been a long time since my last post! I didn't mean to, but I've been planning for NaNoWriMo! Speaking of which, I received this on Friday:

I donated some money to NaNoWriMo and opted to receive some 'thank you' goodies in return, including this postcard! (I also got a couple of stickers). 

And also speaking of NaNoWriMo, I hit the 50,ooo word mark yesterday! I can't believe I wrote 50K in two days. But I am aiming for 100,000 this month, so I'm halfway there!

Current wordcount: 51167