Hello world! It’s the beginning of a new week… Hopefully this will be a wonderful one!

Let’s meet the Penpal of the Week…

Please tell us about you!

Hello to all! This is me; Jonna, 33 years young Finnish woman. I’m mom for two pre-teens and partner for a loving guy with who I have been together for over 13 years by now.

This is me :)

We live in South-East of Finland in our own house which we bought almost 11 years ago. We have large garden in here with berry bushes and apple & plum trees. Even the scenery in here is pretty countryside-a-like it’s only 7 kilometers to the nearest city, Kouvola.

My family is the most important thing for me. My partner Sami is 37 years old, my son Joni is soon 14 years old and my daughter Sonja is 12 years old. We live pretty ordinary life with our activities and try to find time for each other within hectic days.

In these days my family contains also a little furry fellow which we got only few weeks ago. For years we have not had any pets because Sami is allergic but we got a chance to try to have a hamster and we took it. Sami have not got any reactions so we does not need to return him. And that’s good because we all adore this little guy so very much. It’s amazing how this kind of little furry ball can make us all to fell in love with him so fast <3

This is my family. This photo is took from some years ago but I love it <3

I’m a practical nurse which means that I work in health care field. Practical nurse is not known in all countries so little explanation about it. We are not qualified nurses but we can do a lot of same things than nurses do. We can take care of medicines in our work, give injections under the skin and in muscular, make wound treatment… but we can’t take blood tests, give medicines i.v. etc.

I work in elderly house in a interval department where elders comes to stay from few days for two weeks which is maximum in our department. My job is take care of their daily living activities so I help them with the things where they need help and I also encourage them to make most of thing by themselves to keep up their physical working order. These elders still lives permanently at their own homes and it’s important that they can survive in there with a help of home service or with a help of their relatives etc.

My hobbies are penpalling, reading books, knitting, paper crafts… I love to watch tv series and movies on dvd, going in National Parks, travelling… I’m autumn girl at my heart and I just love dark evenings with rain, crispy mornings with sunshine, all those colors and smell of autumn. Autumn gives so much energy for me <3 I love photographs and photographing but I’m just a Sunday photographer and I always use automatic setting when I take photos.

I write my own blog to share my mail and also some other things in my life: Astaldothoniels Corner. From there you’ll find lot of links to other places where I am and also learn a lot more about me if you want to ;)

May I present: Steve alias Sepe alias Bug alias Beast <3

Describe your personality in 10 words!

Shy: What it comes on my character I’m shy and quiet person. Not around my friends and really not when I’m writing a letters but in bigger group with people I hardly know. Or also in bigger group even that I know the peoples.

Bookworm: I just love books, I read them, collect them and live surrounded them. Can’t live without them. I’m so glad that also my family have discovered the magical world of books <3

Worrier: I worry about things too much and that makes my life pretty hard sometimes. It bugs me a lot and I have been trying to improve myself with this. It’s better in these days than it used to be but worrying (for nothing mostly) is still part of my life.

Optimistic: I always try to find the brighter side of things. Always. That can be annoying.

Dreamer: I dream a lot. You know, about things I would like to have, about things I would like to do, daydreaming and so on <3 I think that everyone should have lot of dreams :)

Most important place in our village: LIBRARY <3

Friendly: I think that I’m very friendly person. I don’t want to hurt anyone, I hate fights and try to avoid those as long as I can. But of course no body messes with my family ;)

Helpful: I like to help peoples and maybe that’s why I choosed to become as a practical nurse after all.

Sensitive: I feel strongly and I may end up in tears very easily. Tears can be for pain, sorrow or joy, anything ;) While reading a book I may cry or laugh out loud, I may throw a book of my hands if it really bugs me (like Twilight books did, but I had to read them anyway!), I may speak for movie characters while watching movie etc… Ok, maybe this one should have been something like crazy ;D

Rambler: I do that a lot, especially when I’m writing. I’m not actually very much talker but I’m very much a writer I think ;) Wrambler ;D Eh…

House Mouse: The best place in the world is our own home <3 I want my home to be cozy because that’s when my soul rests. I tend to stay at home and do my own things, be with my family and just relax.

My daughter share most of my hobbies, like penpalling <3

How long have you been penpalling? How did you first start? Tell us about your first penpal!

I started penpalling when I was 11-12 years old so that’s little bit over 20 years ago. I discovered penpal ads from youths magazines and thought to try it and I loved it. Of course I had been writing letters with girls in next door also before that :)

I have had few longer breaks of this hobby but I always came back :) My latest break was… I can’t remember when it was. My breaks have been because of some difficult situations in life but that’s that.

My first penpals was few years older girl from Nastola, Finland. I was lucky to have her as my first penpal because she teached for me what is long letter ;D And I guess that from her I learned also all this rambling ;) We wrote letters til the beginning of 20th century and then she said that she was too old for writing letters. That was really sad but her choice of course.

How many penpals do you have now and where are they from?

To be honest, I don’t know how many penpals I have now and I don’t even want to make any counting. It was around 30 (yes!) lately, but now I don’t know. I think that amount of penpals does not really matter as long as I can keep the balance with my writing. And right now my balance is just fine. I have penpals who are on break, penpals who writes only few times within year (and that’s really fine with me!) and then also regular penpals. Of course if all my penpals would be very regular one’s, I couldn’t keep the balance at all…

Some mail art I made recently.

Actually it’s sometimes hard to even know who is still writing with me, who really will respond on my intro letter or who will actually write the promised intro letter. But I think that this is just normal in penpalling world :)

Most of my penpals are from European countries. Few are from somewhere else like from USA, Malaysia, New Zealand…

What are your favorite topics to discuss in letters?

I love to write about anything! But my penpals should know that I tend to ramble about books a lot ;) So maybe that’s my favorite topic then. But really, I write about anything that comes to my mind and I wish that my penpals does the same with me. It can be happy things or sad things. Life is not just sunshine and daisies, it’s also thunderstorms and poison ivy’s.

What are you looking for in a penpal?

A friend for who I can trust and count on and who can also trust and count on me. I want to have both sided friendship. I want to share a lot and be shared a lot as well. Of course I’m also looking for long-lasting friendship but to be honest it just can’t happened with everyone.

What do you like the most about penpalling?

I love to get a long letter from a friend with all news, thoughts, wishes, dreams etc. It’s just so lovely to sit down with a mug of coffee or tea and jump into the letter I have received. I’m also curious to learn about other cultures because there is so many differences between different cultures. And best way to learn that is to read about my penpals daily life etc :)

At Repovesi National Park which is 30 kilometers away from us.

In what language(s) do you correspond?

In English and of course in Finnish. I wish to be able to correspond in Swedish as well in someday, but right now I’m too far away from it! I used to study Swedish at school but because I have not used it since that I have forgot almost everything :/

What are some of your habits in regards to letter writing?

I usually write my letters in our kitchen. But it’s so annoying that I need to remove all my stuff off the table that we can eat ;D So I wish to have my own writing desk in someday. Just wish to have room for that…

I usually answer for my letters within two months I guess. Right now my writing speed is much faster and I answer within few weeks but that’s not always like this. Right now I’m just very much in mood ;) If life get’s busy or very hectic it may take longer than few months to answer but that’s life and my penpals understands it <3

I always write on both sides of paper, front and back. Length of my letters vary a lot, it depends a lot about a letter that I’m answering for, if I make very good match with my penpal etc. Normal length is around 8 A5 sheets, sometimes I write shorter letters like 4-5 A5 sheets… and sometimes my letters can end up to be like 17 A5 sheets.

By the way, I don’t find it hard to write the first letter. And I have noticed that my intro letters are getting longer and longer all the time. Usual length for my intro letter is about 8 A5 sheets :) Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. I guess that profiles and blogs makes it easy to get to know a lot about person for who I’m writing intro letter and that’s why it’s so much easier to write it.

This is sample of my handwritings ;)

I usually use my Pilot Fine pens for writing letters. Those are best pens in the world and last much longer than gel pens etc. And there is also some color choices in these pens; blue, red, lilac, black and green :)

I love to use cute and colorful writing papers for my letters. I don’t really care if my penpals use blank white paper when they write for me, just want to make sure about that ;) But I’m very much writing paper addict. I need serious rehab actually ;D I also love mail art and I make it also myself in time to time, when I’m inspired.

One thing is sure. I will write letters til I’m old and gray. As long as I can hold a pen.

Has anything strange/funny ever happened to you since you’ve been penpalling?

Nothing so big I guess. Well, sometimes it seems to faith what it comes to finding lovely penpals. With few we have seen each other already before in social media like penpalling groups, blog etc and have been thinking that “This person is interesting, I would like to write a letter’s with her!” and then another of us have sent a request and this have came out :) So that must be a faith.

Oh and actually something big did happened through penpalling because that’s how I met my partner Sami <3

Sami and I at Germany in June 2010.

Have you met any of your penpals?

About my current penpals I have met two. Few years ago I met Anna who lives in Helsinki. We spent very lovely day in there (Helsinki) and went to the movies, shopping, eat etc. I’m rather shy but we get along just great. Hopefully we can meet again someday <3

In last May I met my Dutch penpal at Amsterdam. I was there on girls trip with my school friend and Cyn came to visit us for some hours. I was little bit nervous before we met because of my character; always shy and worried about everything ;) But it all went just fine, it was easy to be around Cyn and I could even talk ;) I’m very unsure about my English when I need to talk it, you know. Anyway, this was great experience and I wish to meet some more of my penpals abroad in the future <3

I and my penpal Cyn in Amsterdam :)

Are you currently looking for more penpals?

Not really. But I’m the person who can’t say no if I get very long and interesting penfriend request :D

Thank you Julie for this chance to be interviewed in your lovely blog :)))

It was my pleasure, Jonna!