I don't think I'm actually on board with this; I'm a fairly private person and giving out my contact details is something I was trying to avoid.
That was before two things happened:
First, Star asked for my contact details because she wanted to exchange cards. So I took a deep breath and said, "okay."
Second, a member who shall currently remain nameless said in a thread of hers, that she and her family use the internet safely, and this challenged husband to "white hat" her to see what he could find in terms of publicly available info. We may (in consultation with this member) put this together in a thread, to teach you all how to be safe. But I felt so guilty at the alarm we may have caused, that I've sent off another card.
I did wait, I wanted to send some really special cards with photos of where we live as part of the card. I had to compromise a bit with Star, but on Saturday I found some lovely cards at the local bazaar and I posted off another couple of US cards this afternoon.
Now, for the information of anyone who collects stamps - please open your envelopes carefully and try to not fold or damage the margins of your stamps. Star, I carefully chose a range of stamps. I tried to do that with my other ones, but despite choosing a time when the postmaster had said he would have more time, he was rushed and not paying attention. However, he IS a philatelist and was very careful to postmark the stamps as meticulously as possible.
It made me think - who else collects stamps? Because this exercise made me realise, I can't just use standard Aussie stamps on international mail, I have to use special international ones. And I'm going to have loads of our domestic ones, I know I have plenty of them from previous years. So maybe another collector on the CD site might like to go through their collection of all the boring, routine US stamps for your domestic market, and do a swap with all mine? Especially the special Christmas issue ones, from this year and previous years.
Maybe what I should also have done, is included some of our sand. I wouldn't even have to go to the beach for it - we live on what was once sand dunes.
Just don't send me any snow in return - it makes the stamps soggy.
Marg
