Postcrossing...

JP and I love to send and receive postcards and snail mail.  I realized this morning that I neglected to mention Postcrossing in my post about turning children into writers.  Postcrossing is a great, low-commitment, and low-pressure, way to encourage writing.  Postcrossing is a post card exchange program, and great fun!  To date, my son and I have sent 79 cards, and received 82. We currently have 8 that are "traveling" around the world.  These 8 are on their way to China, Taiwan, Vermont, Latvia, Netherlands (2 cards), Russia, and Germany.  It is so much fun to receive a handwritten postcard in the mail!  My son and I love to look at the cards, read the messages, and study the postage stamps.  We've received a wide variety of cards...take a look at a few...

From Finland (my favorite postcard EVER!)

From Estonia

From Boston (as noted on the card)

This card came from China, despite the fact that it has a US mail box on it!

From my friend Chris, all the way from Japan.

From my best friend, C, in California.

From the Netherlands (aka - Holland, as noted on the card).

From Canada (as noted on the card).

Beautiful stamp from Valerie in France.

In other blog-related news, I plan to implement two new features to encourage me to blog more regularly:
* Mail Call - where I share with you the post cards, and other fun mail that JP and I receive.
* What's for dinner? - exactly what it sounds like.  I tell you what we had for dinner, and share a few recipes.

Today's mail had nothing interesting.  For dinner? We ate an Israeli salad, rice, and garlic bread.  My friend's dad makes this for her family frequently.  They are from Israel and have told me that it is one of the most common dishes eaten there.  My friend's family often have it as an afternoon snack.  Although I found many recipes online, they all were slightly different, and I didn't have the exact amounts of some ingredients for some of the recipes.  So, thinking about the flavors, I just created my own:

Malea's Version: Israeli Salad

* 1 tomato, diced
* 1/4 of a large red onion, diced
* 1/4 of a red bell pepper, diced
* 1/4 of an orange bell pepper, diced
* 1/4 of a yellow bell pepper, diced
* 1 medium cucumber, diced (skin on, seeds removed if you wish)
* 3 Tbsp lemon juice
* 1/4 Cup olive oil
* dash salt
* dash pepper

Mix the veggies together in a bowl. Whisk the lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper together in a small bowl (I just mixed them right in the measuring cup used for the olive oil).  Pour the lemon juice and olive oil mixture over the veggies.  Stir to coat the veggies in the dressing.  Taste, and adjust seasoning as necessary.  Eat!

Sorry about the lack of a picture...ate it all without thinking to snap a photo!  Oh, but here is my one and only postcard from Israel:

From Israel