Macedonian Costume and Bridal Dance

This wonderful card is the result of my second private swap with Ana in Macedonia! She has a wonderful postcard blog of her own at http://thewholeworldatyourhands.blogspot.com. She gets some really unusual postcards because Macedonia has so few participants in the Postcrossing project. In any case, I really, really love postcards with the national costume, because this is almost always something that I know nothing about. That's why I'm writing about it here! I encourage you to visit this website to read more about the Macedonian dress, but I'll try to summarize here. 

This originates from the region of Macedonia seen here: 

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The elaborate costume is worn by women during the bridal dance, which you can see here on this wonderful YouTube video. :)

Gimme Your Stuff!

One thing on my list of things to do is participate in Gimme Your Stuff, which is a small cultural exchange - send a box full of small goodies to someone in a different country, and get one back. Here is my list:

What I Can Send and What I'd Like to Receive:

• stationery or stickers
• books and magazines
• toiletries like shampoo, soaps, lotions...
• tea, coffee, or spices
• candy or sweets of any variety
• small clothing items and accessories (t-shirts, scarves, gloves, hats, underwear, jewelry, belts, etc.)
• mix CDs handmade by me :)
• souvenir items like postcards, magnets, keychains
• please feel free to ask for other things...I am happy to send just about anything

I really hope to hear from you! 

Renewed passport!

Good morning! It's Monday, and I feel pretty good after a relaxing weekend. Vince and I have taken up a new hobby, geocaching. It's a worldwide, never-ending treasure hunt. A geocache is a small, sealed container containing a logbook and other small, inexpensive but amusing trinkets that are hidden in, at the moment, nearly 800,000 locations around the globe. You use a GPS device with latitude and longitude coordinates to find the caches, which are all listed on the website. The fun part is hunting for the cache, which is often hidden in an ingenious location. When you find it, you sign the log to say you were there, look at all the goodies inside, and leave something of your own behind, if you choose. You can also take things, but you must replace them with something else. It's really fun, good exercise, and a great way to be outdoors and explore an area, whether you live there or you're just visiting.

So, on to things on my list - Vince and I went to the post office. I renewed my passport, and he applied for his first, so in a few weeks we'll be ready to travel across borders if we so desire. :) Also, I had another girls' night with Megan and Dana on Thursday, February 5. We went to dinner at Lulu's, then went to Carnegie Music Hall to see Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt play. It was a nice, simple set with just two guys, two chairs, and two guitars, and we all enjoyed it. Thanks Dana!

I plan on finishing Season 1 of Veronica Mars today - one down, two more to go - then that's another thing off the list. Also, I took a week off from the Couch to 5k Running Plan, but instead of doing my normal, getting frustrated and giving up, I backtracked a little and continued my jogging. I'm really happy about that. Now I just need to go cold turkey with my sweet tooth and give up all the junk and candy. Blech.

The weather is getting warmer...thank god. Hopefully no more single digit days.

Define "regularly" ..... ?

So, in order to fulfill the requirements of my 101 list, I have to post to this blog regularly. What exactly, do you suppose, is "regularly?" Is it basically, as long as I don't quit, it's regular? That's what I'm going with. Because if I complete everything on my list, I get to buy an extra pair of shoes.

So I actually only have one thing I can actually cross off my list for this go-round, but I am working on a few others. On Saturday, Vince and I visited the Carnegie Art Museum and had a lovely time.

In other news, I began the Couch to 5k Running Plan a little over three weeks ago, and it's been very successful so far. I am one of the most out of shape people I know - my cardiovascular health is considerably worse than my outward appearance might otherwise indicate - but I have been able to manage the slow transition from walking to jogging. At the beginning of my fourth week I am doing 16 minutes of jogging and 5 minutes of walking, and by the end of next week it will be 20 minutes of solid jogging. Two weeks after that, I'll be jogging for thirty minutes. I'd like to be in better health for spring, when exercise options are wide open - I'd like to use my new bike more, and maybe just do some hiking in the amazing park practically outside my front door. And it would be nice if I lost some weight in the process, but I'm not stressing about it, because I'm pretty sure whether I do or not, exercise is going to be good for me, and I don't want to get discouraged. :)

I've been reading a great deal, and I just began re-watching Veronica Mars. Still on my way to becoming a better me. :)

(PS- If you've been reading this as a note on Facebook, I encourage to come to the actual website where this is posted, which is krhocevar.blogspot.com, so you can see photos and my original list, plus some cool links and such!)

So, I've been a little negligent...

Hello! I haven't been keeping up with my blog very well. I have, however, been crossing things off my list on the margin to the left, as probably only the most watchful have actually noticed. Of note - I voted for Barack Obama. Vince, Megan and I spent the evening at the Drawn-In Cafe around the corner from our house. There was a TV hooked up and people from around the neighborhood gathered to await election results. It was a really cool evening, and everyone sat and stood around the TV watching Obama's acceptance speech in awed silence. It was a very special moment, forgive my sentimentality.

I learned to knit. I've got the basics down pretty well, and I started a project that I'm going to have to restart because I made it too small. So, it was small, but it was pretty! :) I feel that I can safely cross that one off the list.

I tried a new cuisine: Ethiopian! We went to Abay Restaurant in East Liberty on Halloween. It was fun because neither of us were familiar with the food, so we just ordered whatever sounded good and laughed as we tried to scoop food into our mouths with the injera. I saved a copy of the take-out menu.

We bought new fish. We've had them for over a month now, and none of them have died. Our tank looks fantastic.

I joined a book club! It's an online club using Google Groups, and its composed of Postcrossing members! There is an assortment of people involved - about 15, I believe - from all different countries. Some have joined to help improve their English, others just for the fun of reading, like me. Our first book is Persuasion by Jane Austen, which we are to have finished by the end of the year. It's been fun so far. I guess I should start reading the book. :)

An update: I did finish Vince's teeth-cleaning regimen successfully, and I am continuing to follow it. Self-improvement at its finest.

I bought an address book and filled it up. Check.

I have discovered that one of the things on my list that I thought would be fairly easy may actually prove to be quite difficult, and that is drinking only water for two weeks. I tried it for one day and couldn't do it. I have to do it three times!

I have been reading quite a lot, and feel confident that I will complete my 101 books without a problem.

Sorry to have kept you waiting for an update! Hope this satisfies the masses! :)

Jeepney

This is an image of the Filipino Jeepney, nowadays the most common form of public transportation in the Philippines. They were introduced following World War II. When American troops pulled out of the Philippines, they sold off many of their surplus jeeps to the locals. Filipinos then stripped the interiors to accommodate more passengers and added metal roofs. As they became more popular they also added chrome decor and outlandish hood ornaments to make them immediately recognizable for use as public transportation. The jeepney (believed to be a combination of jeep and jitney) is now produced independently of Jeep, and has become a symbol of Filipino culture. This card came from user Donabel.

Wow, I have a lot of postcards

So, I gotta tell ya, I'm having a bit of a hard time keeping up with all these amazing postcards I've been receiving. So I think I'm going to have to reform my formatting scheme here: maybe choose postcards I receive that I'm really interested in and warrant further research. I just have to have to be diligent in keeping up with the blog. I see that I am starting to get more visitors, presumably from the Postcrossing forums - thanks for visiting. :)

I am only posting this card for your viewing pleasure - thanks to ichabodhides. :)