Returning the favor

With 1,000 cards written to our wounded soldiers, I put my card writing days are on hold. But in the last 10 days I have received 2 e-mails from card recipients. That brings my total of responses received to 4.

I received the first response about 2 months ago while my parents were here. Once I figured out why this apparent stranger was writing to me I started to cry. After 11 months of writing with very little expectation of hearing back, someone took the time to shoot me an e-mail, just to say "thanks." I hope that is the same feeling soldiers get when they read my cards.

1,000

So that friendly competition where Jack Bauer was rushing to get home before I finished writing 1,000 cards for our wounded soldiers for Soldiers' Angels Germany. Well the competition is over. Jack Bauer made it home. But I had finished writing all the cards two days before. But we mailed 159 cards yesterday.

Running total: 1,000

Here's the link to the post that got me started. If you want more information on how to start your own letter/card writing campaign (or other volunteer opportunities), visit Soldiers' Angels Germany (look at the "Year-round Projects" in the right-hand column of links).

Thank you, AWTM, for making me aware of the incredible opportunity. And a HUGE THANK YOU to MaryAnn who dedicates countless hours to Soldiers' Angels making sure that no Soldier goes unloved. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Competition where losers are winners too

Jack Bauer and I have a friendly little competition going on. The kind of competition where we all win in the end. He is trying to get home before I reach my one stated goal of this deployment: to write 1,000 cards for Soldiers' Angels Germany.

I was on schedule to do this no problem until March became an insane month. And, well, life happened and card writing got pushed to the bottom of the list.

As of March 13, I had sent 841 cards to our wounded Soldiers. That means only 159 left to do. I started writing them again a few weeks ago. But picked up the pace dramatically last weekend when I cranked out 41; never made it to the post office though. So the cards piled up on my dining room table (glad to see the table is being used for something useful these days).

And now that Jack Bauer is much closer to being home, I thought I would just try to crank out as many cards as humanly possible. A great representation of the end of this marathon of a deployment and typical of me working best under pressure. Jack is going to try to get home as soon as humanly possible, but we don't really know when that will be. Maybe the faster I write, the sooner he will get home.

Well, I'd better be getting back to writing cards. I've got just 14 left to go. And I better prepare MaryAnn for the box she is about to get. :D

More cards

I sent 13 cards to Soldiers' Angels Germany for our wounded soldiers.

Running total: 841

More cards

Sent out 15 cards to Soldiers' Angels Germany for our wounded soldiers.

Running total: 828

Cards

I sent 25 cards to SAG yesterday.

Running total: 813

And just another nice picture. :D

More cards

Sent 21 cards out to our wounded Soldiers in Germany through Soldiers' Angels Germany.

Running total: 788

Just thought that was a nice picture of Antonio Banderas. :D

Saturday Cards

The cards are continuing to go out to our wounded servicemembers through Soldiers' Angels Germany.

Sent out 16 yesterday.

Running total: 767

On Cards

I started writing cards for our wounded Soldiers in Germany (through Soldiers' Angels Germany) back in May 2007 after AWTM posted about the opportunity and the need. I was just reading back through some of those first few posts. I would have never thought I would have written this many cards. At one point I was hoping to send 200.

This got me thinking about the roles we play in one another's lives. I doubt AWTM would have thought she would have inspired someone to write this many cards and how much this has helped me. And in the other direction, I am sure my cards have been read by more than a few Soldiers. But the impact any of my words have, I don't know. I hope a butterfly or two has touched someone, made someone smile, lightened the mood, eased the pain, the loneliness, the disconnection if for just a moment.

I sent out 30 cards on Saturday.

Running total: 751

More cards

I sent off some cards for Soldiers' Angels Germany yesterday. I bundled them up on Friday. And today I can't seem to remember right off hand how many I sent and had to figure it out. I think there were 12.

Running total: 721

Cards for SAG

It seems that my card writing campaign is slowing down some what. But it is still going strong.

On Saturday I sent off 13 more cards for our wounded Soldiers at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center as part of Soldiers' Angels Germany's efforts to make sure "no Soldier goes unloved."

If you are unfamiliar with this wonderful organization and would like more information, please be sure to check out their website here. They have many year-round projects (on their website, scroll down a bit on the right-hand column), I am sure there is something there for everyone who is interested in helping out.

As for my own card campaign, I sent off card #700 in this last batch.

Running total: 709

Thank you

I realized that the other day when I posted about the cards I last sent off to Soldiers' Angels Germany that I forgot to thank someone. Sarah had given me 28 cards while I was at SBL3. Those were the ones I sent off.

Thank you very much, Sarah. You chose some great cards.

(Excellent scarf, by the way! You are so talented.)

Phew! Just made the deadline

Yesterday afternoon, I headed to my post office to send off a few things. It never occurred to me that the post office might have closed early. I HAD to get an envelope in the mail, local taxes due. But that wasn't all I wanted to mail. So I had to head downtown, through the "bad" neighborhoods, to the central post office and hope and pray that it wasn't also closed. Fortunately, it was open but also closing early. I made it just in time.

In addition to the taxes, I mailed Jack Bauer a small care package: 5 lb. of coffee, hand cream, and two cute puppy calendars (Rottweilers and German Shepherds).

I also had some cards for Soldiers' Angels Germany. Another 28 cards of encouragement for our wounded Soldiers. For the year, the total cards I sent (there were maybe up to 15 or 20 that weren't written by me) comes to 696. Hmmm. That's kind of a lot.

I keep forgetting ...

All day I kept remembering that I forgot to post that I sent 30 cards to our wounded Soldiers off to Soldiers' Angels Germany. Yeah, I braved the post office on the busiest day of the year.

Running total: 668

More cards

I let Jack Bauer out of my sight today. He went to run errands including to the post office to mail 17 more cards of encouragement to Soldiers' Angels Germany.

Running total: 638

More cards

So nice to have Jack Bauer home. I get to share with him the things that I have started doing in the last 8 months, like writing cards of encouragement for our wounded Soldiers at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. I dragged took him card shopping at Papyrus. (He suggested some lingerie type cards. I passed.)

Today we went to the post office and mailed off 15 cards to Soldiers' Angels Germany.

Running total: 621

Delinquent Cards

I just realized it has been quite some time since I last sent some cards of encouragement to Soldiers' Angels Germany for our wounded warriors. But that doesn't mean that I didn't have any to send. Just been super busy.

While I was out in Vegas, Sarah gave 30 lightly holiday-themed blank cards. Some had red and green ornaments and other had blue snowflakes. I got all 30 of them sent off yesterday in addition to 16 others I had. So a total of 46 cards went out.

Huh, I guess that took me over 600, and I didn't even realize it.

Running total: 606

Chuga Chuga Chuga Chuga CHOOCHOO!!

Yes, ladies and gentleman (singular cuz I am sure Jack Bauer is the only boy reading this blog) that was the sound of the train carrying more cards off to our wounded warriors in Germany.

MaryAnn, there are 15 more cards coming your way.

Running total: 560

card continuation

Thirty more cards off to Soldiers' Angels Germany yesterday.

Including some of the froggies!

Running total: 545

A change of artistic direction

I have decided I have had enough of just doing butterfly cards. Granted there is a very large selection of butterflies on card out there, after 500 cards I am wanting more. So I bought some non-butterfly themed cards. Here are some ...










Not to worry. I still have plenty of butterflies left in me. ;-)

Also, I am thinking about changing my butterfly stamp. Maybe something a little more subtle. But this looks more like a dragonfly. Hmmm. I'm not sure that is the stamp for me. I probably need to do some more looking.

Saturday I sent out some of these non-butterfly cards along with some butterflies. 15 of them.

Running total: 515