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 My final haiku. Holland had a way of romanticising the winter darkness that I might have adopted.

A Himalayan family and their home in the mountains, a traditional yurt.

When my children were young, we hosted exchange students for a few weeks every summer. Most of the time our students were from Japan, and one of the most exciting things for my youngest daughter was the knowledge that they would probably bring Japanese sweets for her and her sister. Melanie had quite the sweet tooth (and still does at age 27).

I've been thinking a lot about those students, who would be all grown up now, probably with children of their own. I only kept in touch with a few of them, and that has only been once a year notes. As the days go on, I'm trying to think of all the sweet memories and not focus on what might be.

I don't take a lot of chances with my art. This particular card is pretty, but not particularly artistic. I just picked the colors from the vintage food label, added a simple stamped image and glued it together. When I do get a bit more adventurous with color, I use a color wheel to spell out exactly the colors that I should pick from in order to create a scheme that works.

My mom is a quilter. She can put patterns and colors together with incredible skill. And she isn't train. She discovered quilting late in life, at age 60. Before making her first quilt she had never really operated a sewing machine. Her quilts are works of art and I'm lucky enough to have two of them.

My mom gives me hope that someday I might not always play it safe when it comes to art.

Pamela sent me a mix CD with "Music to Cook By (or Make Mailart)" and one of the songs is George Thorogood doing "House Rent Boogie/One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer," one of my favorite drinking songs. There are lots of other songs on the CD that will find their way into my mailart during the coming year, too, but when I heard this song, I knew just what I wanted to make.

The cityscape is actually a sculpture from a postcard that has been kicking around in my stash for years. I always knew it would be a cityscape, but never could figure out how. I added some windows, and the BAR sign, and I have the perfect dive bar for drowning woes.

I bought a nip of Jim Beam and Johnnie Walker 'cause I don't drink those beverages. Greg commented that this is one expensive postcard 'cause the nips cost about $7 together. He thought I was going to toss the alcohol out, but little does he know I am using the bourbon to marinate some dried cranberries and will use that for bread pudding later in the week. I don't know what I'll use the scotch for, but I'll find something, other than drinking it. If I'm going to drink scotch, it will be good scotch, not Johnnie Walker.

And this card has a fun memory, too. Back in the late 1980s, when my youngest daughter was 4 years old, she had quite a fascination with George Thorogood and other really rockin' artists. Her pre-school teacher told me she would sit at the art table and sing Thorogood ... "I drink alone, yeah, with nobody else." I've got that tune as her special ringtone on my phone.

I was never much of a zoo fan, but that's because my early experience with zoos had been with awful places where animals were kept in small cages and displayed for just the entertainment of humans. When I moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I heard so much about the zoo here and how much conservation work the organization does, that I had to see for myself. And after seeing the zoo, I joined their membership base. It is an amazing place and we try to visit as often as possible. The animals are very well cared for and some would not survive in the wild because of injury. The educational programs are amazing and there are lots of urban children who experience their first contact with conservation via those programs.

This card is going to my 18 month old grandson, Tate. I'm sure my daughter will have to convince him the animal crackers are not edible. Tate loves to eat, and is not at all fussy about food. He is so much fun to take to restaurants because he wants to try everything on everyone's plates. This postcard will get put out of reach because I am sure he will try to eat the stickers.

When I saw a box of Social Snackers at Trader Joe's in December, I  knew I had to have it because I saw an "AntiSocial Snackers" postcard written all over it. But, we forgot to save the box, so I insisted on going all the way back to Trader Joe's last weekend (it is not nearby!) so we could buy another box. I think I need a food label intervention.

The girl and cat are images from my stash. I knew the girl was in there and hunted her out back in December when I had the first box of crackers, but the cat is just luck. I've no idea where it came from, but it's perfect. My cat would murder me in the middle of the night if I tried to put a strainer on her face and take a picture. Where do people find these cats that allow for goofy photos?

This is going to my daughter April and son-in-law Greg, who are the least antisocial people you will ever meet. When they got married five years ago, my daughter had to disappoint some of her friends because she already had 12 bridesmaids and had to draw a line. My son-in-law had 6 groomsmen, so each one got two bridesmaids to escort. This photo is a candid shot of the wedding party trying to fit into normal size gazebo. They did all manage to fit and the professional photo is quite nice.

A year ago today, I was getting ready to get on an airplane to head up first to Boston, and then by car to a mountain in Maine. There was a snow storm coming in and we had to be in Maine by 2 January 2010, my daughter's wedding day. We made it, and it was wonderful.

My daughter got married on skis. It was the wedding she dreamed about since she was a little girl. She skied down the mountain with her dad, met her fiance and guests at the bottom where we had an outdoor ceremony, in the snow. Later we all gathered for a lovely dinner in the ski lodge. It was a small wedding and quite beautiful. My other daughter got married in a big fairytale wedding a few years earlier. And that was quite beautiful, too. I've had the best of both worlds.

As much as I love sending mail, I find sending out birthday and anniversary cards very difficult. Even letters to my family are harder for me to write than to complete strangers. This year I resolve to end that and this card, which is going to Melanie and Nick for their first anniversary, is the first step toward that resolve. I will send a card to recognize every celebration in my family, and I will write to my family, just out-of-the-blue letters.

This is heading up to my 3 year old granddaughter, Savannah. She loves postcards and has since she was an infant. I live 600 miles (975 km) from my daughters and their families so I started sending Savannah, my first grandchild, cards soon after she was born. My daughter hung them on the photo board above Savvy's changing table and noticed that Savvy loved to look at those cards. When she was older, she would carry the cards around with her all the time. And when she visited me here in Pittsburgh, she spent hours going through a large basket of my postcards ... sorting them into categories only she knew.

I recently got Savannah her own post office box near her house and signed her up for a Postcrossing account. She loves going to her special box, which is low enough for her to open, and picking up her mail. I take care of sending outgoing postcards for her, though, since she is too young to write. Eventually she will be writing her own postcards. Maybe even creating them.