checking the mail? | pad patter 3.28.2018

We check our mail and I like it better than my hubs! It's usually junk, but I still like going through it. I'm like you, sometimes I'll get a little note or something from my parents or grandma... or a save the date or something like that! The only thing I don't like is we have little piles of mail all over the house! (I blame my husband) Still fun, though!

 

Oh My Goodness Anne.................. in a number of days you will realize why this post of yours has me joyfully laughing.....

My mailbox is just at the end of our driveway. We can see the mail lady when she pulls up to our box. I love getting snail mail! AND sending out snail mail, I still love to create cards and send them out. I do because as soon as I stop I will get my children telling me they miss them!! Fills my heart to bursting!

How Exciting! Enjoy your trip!

 

We check the mail every day! Though I know what's coming before it arrives-- my husband has some thing set up where they email him a picture of our mail each morning so we know what's coming.

Anyhow, our mail carrier and my daughter have become such good friends. Raileigh runs out to greet Mareea when she hears the mail truck each day. Mareaa is all the time bringing her treats, even spoiling her with gifts at Christmas time! We bring her hot chocolate on cold days, Raileigh draws for her, and brings her treats when we bake. They have a special bond and could spend hours talking about anything or nothing.

Maybe I am old-fashioned, but it completely makes my day when we get letters, cards, or postcards. We have a few friends that we swap postcards with back and forth. We all love it!

 

When we lived in Houston, our mail carrier walked door-to-door. DD was playing outside in the front yard one of the first days we were there, and she walked up to us to introduce herself. She was basically the first person to say "Hello!" to DD and me. It was nice to know her because she was a wonderful person and she was great at her job.

Now I live in a place with lots of mail problems. My neighbors and I have all called and complained and it's finally a little bit better. Long story short: I miss our mail carrier in Houston. Miss W was fantastic! But I still like to get snail mail. The kids love to draw and write letters to their grandparents, which I know they love receiving.

 

We check the mail everyday.. I can usually hear ours. While most of it is often junk mail occaisionally it will be an unexpected card or note from my BFF (and vice versa) and I love that. Hubby gets it as he likes to walk out and check on the yard and all. I always have loved snail mail I used to love buying stationary just to write fun letters. I have saved letters or cards Mom, Dad and my grandparents have sent me way back and smile reading them. I miss that.

 

My hubby and business partner own several rental properties so they often get rent checks in the mail. We also get magazines and lots of junk mail. So yes, every day because otherwise our box would fill up.

That said, I am bad about not opening junk mail. I almost recycled a check the other day because it was in an envelope that looked like junk mail ---- ooopps...

 

I am more diligent about checking mail the last couple days of the month and the 1st couple days of the month. I have 2 local bills that are received in that 4 day window every month. Every once in awhile I will get something else that is not spectrum trying to get me to switch to their cable, a car dealer sending me a key to try out to see if I win, a couple of catalogs that I have asked to be taken off their list or the local ads that come out once a week.

I have to walk to the end of my driveway. I'm usually in the back of the house so I never hear the truck and it is not consistent as to what time it comes through. Once a month I get a small box that doesn't fit into the mailbox that they do put on the porch but they never knock to let me know it is there. I would also venture to guess that out of the 6 mail days each week, I probably don't get mail on 3 of them. The other 3 are usually junk. In bad weather, I have been known to wait until the next day if it isn't one of the days I know something is coming. Or when I leave to go somewhere, I just pull up to the mailbox and get the mail. As a matter of fact, yesterday's spectrum invitation and weekly ads are still in the car. Tuesdays are junk mail around here. Very rarely do I get first class mail on Tuesday.

 

For the first time in 45 years we have a mail slot in the house again, love ❤️ having it. My husband grew up on the farm where you had to walk to the end of the lane for your mail and I grew up in the city where everyone had in-house delivery. Then we lived in assorted small towns in Iowa where we had to go to the local post office fo the mail, that was a pain. Next we had new houses that required a trip out to the end of the drive or to a localized spot down the street. So it is so nice having the in-house delivery again instead of having to brave the Seattle rainy weather to get our gazillion ads and Netflix envelopes.

 

I only check the mail when I'm expecting something that I've ordered to arrive.

Most of the time my husband checks it after work. He has a 'thing' about paper bills and has ALL of the bills that come in his name come to our house (vs. e-billing). Drives me bonkers.

 

I used to LOVE getting the mail. So much that the habit of going down to pick it up with anticipation has been a long, slowly dying one. Since we moved to this house in 2000, I have had to walk down our 72 foot driveway to reach my mailbox. I still remember the learning process that first winter, when I found out that here in Virginia (as opposed to where I came from in southern California) I must consider the weather before heading out to the mailbox. And in the summer I burned my feet a few times before I learned I must slip on flip flops, or at least walk on the grass. As I was establishing my daily walking habit, in 2014 to 2015, if I didn't manage to walk around the neighborhood, I said, "Well, at least I walked down to the mailbox."

But for several years now, my daily mailbox pick-up has become not-so-daily as it has become so boring and useless and even frustrating from an ecological mindset. It was funny at first, when I'd look through the advertisements and credit offers and the 4 page sample the local newspaper sends every week, and I dumped nearly everything, or sometimes absolutely everything, into the recycle bin on my way through the garage. A lot of the stuff the mail carrier spends so much time delivering doesn't even make it inside my house. I have tried to make my mailbox more interesting, though maybe not enough. Maybe I should keep writing snail mail to friends and family even though they didn't reply.

Just last week, I asked Robert to take over the job. I pointed out that he has been wanting to add more exercise to his life. And it could be an easy addition to his routine every evening when he arrives home from work. He agreed, but it's going to take a while to establish a new habit. Since the evening I asked him, and he picked up the mail, I think I've asked him one more time, and I've picked it up myself a couple of times upon returning from morning walks. I need to remember to remind him.

I wonder if we even need daily government-supported mail delivery anymore. It is wonderful to be able to walk 72' from my house, insert a hand-written note, lift the red flag, and know that someone will receive my words a few days later. It's magical nowadays to find a hand-written message in my mailbox, something that happens to me about twice a year. (Most recently I found a very nice note thanking me for volunteer work.) The postal service has never failed me and I'm grateful for it. But when most people are choosing digital communication and bill-paying digitally just makes so much more sense (trees saved! mail truck use reduced! no more lost checks!) and the vast majority of what's delivered is unwanted, it really seems ridiculous to keep it running like it is. I wouldn't want it to suddenly end -- I don't want to take away the postal workers' livelihoods -- but I think it does need to change. I would be content with it requiring an errand to drop off a hand written letter at the post office, just like we already have to do for packages. We only get trash and recycling picked up once a week; why not mail delivery once a week? If someone needs to send a hand-written message that arrives faster there's FedEx or pay the post office a higher postage rate; personally, I can't imagine wanting to do that. Handwriting is for more leisurely communication. If you're in a hurry, send an email or a text or make a phone call.

By the way, my email box is becoming almost as disappointing as the snail mail box, with most of it being advertisements and bills. The difference is that 98% of those advertisements are for businesses I've invited to send me stuff, because I like to use coupons and be aware of sales. And digital mail takes up far fewer resources than snail mail. Really, I do still love receiving mail, generally speaking. One of my sentimental treasures is a box full of handwritten correspondence from friends and family throughout the 80's and 90's. One of my fondest little memories is of the tiny little envelope icon that appeared in the lower corner of the Prodigy Internet screen when I used it in 1994.

Thanks for the journaling inspiration Anne. This will become a scrapbook page.

 

I have never had a mail slot to deliver mail into my house. Seems like that would be awesome. Unless you have a toddler who might get to it first and tear it.

My prior experiences with mail delivery before this house (described in my previous post):
Growing up in a suburb of San Diego, we had a mail carrier who parked up at the top of our street then walked around the whole street, carrying a big bag full of mail. If there was a package to deliver, s/he drove to that specific house. After moving here, seeing the mail carrier drive from mailbox to mailbox on my street, I've added this to another reason I like city life more. My neighborhood now is really a suburb, but with rural roots, so it would take the mail carrier much longer to walk the route here, than my parents' street.

When I moved out of my parents' house and in with my husband, in both his bachelor pad and the apartment we chose together, there were banks of mailboxes just inside the building entrance gates. We had to have an extra mailbox key. That was a long time ago, so memory is hazy, but I think it worked well and nothing terrible happened. I can't remember how packages were handled, but I think maybe the carrier left a sticky note message telling us to pick up packages at the post office.

 

Hmmm... our mail is on the box outside the front door. I grab it on my way in from work everyday. I open, sort, trash, and file in about 2 minutes. Occasionally, a card from my mom or MIL is in there for the boys... but otherwise, I only like mail at Christmastime, for the cards, lol!

Now... Amazon deliveries are another story... and I'm waiting on one today! Wooo hooo!

 

most of our mail is junk.
Our mail comes through a letter slot in the front door. We call it a letter box, even though it's not a box, and that's the norm in this Country.

 

This is well under HALF the photos I found when I searched my photo files for "mail." That fact, I think, shows how much I have enjoyed the mail-getting habit. It's sad that it's not much fun anymore.

 

I grew up in Chicago on the 2nd floor of a 2 flat, my grandparents & 3 bachelor uncles lived downstairs. The mail was always anticipated, and I'd often go down the interior front stairs to pick it up. Now I live in a rural area, my mailbox is about 100' from our front door, we have a long driveway. When I'm at work, often DH who is retired, walks out to pick it up, but on Saturday or on days off, that is my job, and I really don't mind unless it is bitter cold or the drive is coated with ice.

We still get bills via the mail, DH doesn't want to do anything electronically. But I control the internet billing, and that comes to me & is paid electronically. Just the other day we received an Easter card from a dear friend of ours. We occasionally get postcards and cards from friends and my Stampington magazines. But mostly it is bills, catalogs, and more junk mail. For a while I was collecting junk mail for my gluebook, so even then, I enjoyed seeing what there was to recycle.

Sharing a view of my mailbox & the road from a previous Lynn Grieveson challenge...

 

Our mailbox is at the end of the driveway, which is about 2 1/2 cars long. (Maybe 3 if they are all parked really close to each other.) I don't check the mail; I'm the last one home at the end of the day and my kids get it when Grandma drops them off after school.

I have a box on the counter that I "deal with" every three or four months; my husband sorts the mail and drops anything either addressed to me, or that he doesn't want to deal with, into it. (He puts items that he thinks are important on top, so that I'll see them, but those are very few.) I've gotten really bad lately and am up to TWO boxes (the one from before Christmas is in my bedroom while the current one is on the counter.) I am planning to go through it next week -- we are taking vacation days while the kids are off school -- but I'm so far behind on so many things around the house, that sorting mail into shred and recycle piles is pretty low on the list.

I used to send out lots of cards and letters, but at some point I just stopped, and haven't given it another thought since. I don't receive anything fun or personal (except gift solicitations. LOL)

 

When we lived in our old house I loved our mailman. My kids would leave him little gifts. It was an easy walk to go grab it. Since moving here our mail lady isn't so pleasant...She's kind of grumpy and she doesn't care about our mail (leaves our mailbox open won't deliver bigger items to our door and if she does she' honks her horn, etc...). And our mail is mostly junk mail anyway.

BUT my kids love mailing letters to Grandma, friends and cousins. So they look forward to putting mail in the mailbox and getting mail back. I love that. We even did a little lesson on how to properly format a friendly letter. It seemed so old fashioned...I was thinking about how I should have taught them how to write an e-mail. LOL! BUT it really is a good thing.

 

My husband usually goes out to get the mail. Now our 6 yo gs wants to do it, so I try to get him to wait til Asher gets here.