marinda

Welcome to my profile!

**About me: **

I work part-time online as a genealogist.

I am married to my best friend. (26 years) We have five children and one awesome son-in-law. We also have a beautiful granddaughter!! 👶

We have a menagerie of pets: two adorable goldendoodles, 🐕 two noisy cockatiels, 🦜 one large sulcata tortoise (40 lbs. and counting), 🐢 and a silly bearded dragon.🦎

I live in Arizona. Way Too Hot!! ☀️ 😓 (Caution: things in the mail will melt in the summer months!) 🫠

I have Ankylosing Spondylitis, an autoimmune inflammatory arthritis. If any of you have an autoimmune disease and/or inflammatory arthritis, I would love to hear your story and how you treat it and cope.

I love to send and receive snail mail. I have been here in the swap community for many years now (17!!), and I have enjoyed swapping with people from all over the world. I LOVE SNAIL MAIL!

SOME OF MY FAVORITES:

Colors: Any shade of green, but especially dark/forest green. Deep purple is a close second favorite. I especially enjoy the combination of greens and purples. That being said, I have never met a color I didn't like!

Animals: I love duck-billed platypuses, my all-time favorite animal. They are so fascinating! I love fascinating and unusual animals.

I also love: hedgehogs, Basset hounds, goldendoodles, cockatiels, mallard ducks, walruses, sea horses, bearded dragons, kittens (and other soft/fluffy animals), and tortoises

Hobbies: Playing the piano, reading, diamond "painting," crocheting, knitting, adult-style coloring (especially color-by-number), recycling, genealogy, jigsaw puzzles

Crafts: Crocheting and knitting. I also enjoy cross-stitching occasionally. I have tried ATCs in the past and enjoy those as well. I also love to color, especially adult color-by-number.

More detailed descriptions of things I enjoy are below. (Feel free to read what you like and skip what isn't relevant.)

I like to knit and crochet.

Note: If you have no use for your leftover yarn balls and you don't know what to do with them, feel free to send them my way! I love to make little things from yarn leftovers.

I love to color. It is very relaxing to me. Color-by-number is by far my favorite because it takes the "stress" of choosing colors out of the process.

My collections:

Nativity Christmas tree ornaments. (Mary, Joseph, the infant Jesus, shepherds, and/or wise men.)

Anything with a platypus on it

Leftover yarn balls

Acrylic worsted-weight yarn

ATCs (especially profile-based ones)

Jewelry (necklaces, bracelets, earrings for pierced ears), handmade or store-bought

Christmas postcards, store-bought, blank/unused

Postcards (Store bought. I prefer non-touristy, but I like all postcards)

Advent calendars

My wish list:

Stories or anything relating to adoption (near and dear to my heart)

Anything from my collections section above! 😄

Nativity scenes

Pocket tissues with designs

Personal address labels

Adult level color-by-number books, pages, photocopies, etc.

Washi tape

Perfume samples

Colorful pens

Gel pens

Colorful, fine-point permanent markers

Languages! Postcards, note cards, images, letters, etc. in any language foreign to English

Cultural diversity (all diversity, really)

Images of sunsets on the beach

Baymax from "Big Hero 6"

Sock monkeys

Handwritten letters and chatty notes (A letter from YOU would absolutely make my day!)

Decorative bandages (any and all designs or pictures)

Decorative/decorated envelopes, store-bought or handmade

Gift cards to any retailer

Christmas!

Autumn, Halloween, and Thanksgiving

Button up hanging kitchen towels, handmade or store-bought

Stickers (flat ones, not puffy, foam, or 3D)

Potholders/hot pads, handmade or store-bought

Piano or flute sheet music 🎶

Seahorses

Holiday cards (blank/unused) for any holiday: Christmas, Halloween, Valentine's Day, etc., store-bought or handmade

Hair accessories: barrettes, clips, headbands, etc.

Sugar-free mints or gum

Snow! Snowflakes and/or snow scenes. We don't get any snow here, and I'm glad, but I really think it's beautiful and sometimes I feel like I am missing out.

Wrapping paper/gift wrap (Christmas, birthday, all occasion, wedding, baby, etc.)

I am a fan of the paranormal, especially ghosts! I love ghost stories and personal paranormal accounts. I would LOVE to hear about your encounter(s) if you are willing to share your experience! (But please nothing bloody or gory.)

Anything from (or similar to) my etsy favorites

An Advent calendar (I love Advent calendars of any kind. I love the anticipation and countdown to Christmas and I love Advent.)

Anything that has to do with platypuses or has a platypus on it

Postcard Preferences:

I love all postcards, but for those interested, here is a list of the postcards I particularly enjoy:

Platypuses

Fluffy, soft animals, domestic or wild (photographs)

Sea creatures, especially sea horses

Hedgehogs

Tortoises

Mallard ducks

Birds

Cows

Lizards

Soccer

Castles and palaces

Hawaii or other tropical places

Beautiful sunsets

Norman Rockwell paintings

Frogs

Beach

Christmas

Vintage (true vintage, not copies)

Non-touristy

Multiview without borders (the pictures fade into each other and/or overlap. Montage? Crosss-fade? Not sure what it's called.)

Fantasy

Dogs, especially Bassett hounds

Cats

Airplanes in flight

Rainbows (photographs)

Waterfalls

Greenery

Autumn leaves or other Fall photographs

Nativity scenes

Native/cultural dress

Someone reading book(s)/reading related

Walruses

Stained glass windows

America's founding fathers

Holidays (any)

Black and white photographs

Anything related to my likes or collections above

A note about postcard preferences: If a swap asks for a choice, I like postcards sent blank in an envelope. However, I enjoy almost as much receiving stamped and written postcards, if the postcard is from my postcard preferences list above, has a nice, chatty handwritten note on it, is nicely decorated, and/or has unusual/cool postage stamps on the back. 🤩 Feel free to send postcards any way you wish.

Please Kindly only send storebought/professionally printed postcards, unless the swap indicates otherwise.

I'm easy to please, but after years of swapping experience, I decided to include a list of dislikes and items I would prefer not to receive:

-Apes and monkeys (with the exception of sock monkeys)

-Tea/herbal tea/coffee (flavored water bottle or hot cocoa packets are great alternatives in swaps)

-Stickers that don't stick well!

-Scrapbooking or card-making supplies (I don't do these projects.)

-Notebooks/journals unless they have anything to do with my likes/collections listed above

-Skulls (I love Halloween, but skulls really creep me out. I like skeletons that have full bodies, though.)

-Demonic/bloody/gory/violence

-Politics

-Zazzle postcards, print-your-own postcards, or any postcard that doesn't have the "correct" dimensions (sorry, sounds picky, but it's one of those "pet peeves" 😬)

-Handmade postcards (especially in a store bought only postcard swap!)

-Unhappy endings

-Seafood

-Flakers

-Swaps sent that don't meet the swap requirements and swappers who don't bother to read or follow swap instructions (honest mistakes aside! We all make them sometimes.)