Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Been mailing

Though some weeks slip by with nothing sent and other weeks see three or four letters go out, I've been resolved to send out an average of one hand written letter each week.  I don't stick hard and fast to one letter a week -- though it doesn't seem impossible, does it? -- because I don't want to pressure myself to send something out just for the sake of meeting a deadline; the flexibility of averages, though, allows me to be a thoughtful correspondent while encouraging me to accelerate my thinking and writing processes.  Admittedly, it takes me a while to fully write out what I want to say (I write drafts!), yet more often than not the delay is getting the written letter to post!  My recent hand writing endeavors have given me a lot of penmanship practice and reignited my desire to get back to writing regularly.  I figure that blogging about it will provide more accountability, too. To wit:


Trying to keep up with birthdays challenges me to be mindful.  I keep a birthday calendar but haven't found it optimally useful since I don't refer to it daily.  Often it'll be the day before the birthday before I remember, and by then I'm too late to send a card; I want to do better!  I'm still thinking about a method to help me with this.  So far, I get messages from Facebook to alert me of birthdays that week, but I'd prefer to keep it analog.  Above, I got one card sent out on time, but the envelope with no stamp needed international postage, which I dilly-dallied on until way too late.  I still sent it, though!



I forgot to take a shot of the stack of invitations I sent out for MyKo's bridal shower last week, which puts me WAY above average!  In addition to those nearly 70 invitations, I wrote a more personal note, in red ink on pink paper.  I like how a good quality cotton paper can soak up the ink of a Sharpie pen.



And this week I've written two birthday cards and one letter.  There are a couple more birthday cards to write yet before week's end!

What are you writing these days, and to whom?

2 comments:

  1. I first came across birthday calendars on my first trip to Holland—all of my Dutch relatives have them. Their trick for remembering to look at them? They put their calendars on the back of the bathroom door in the powder room. :)

    You and I share a love of hand writing letters, though you seem to be much better at keeping up with that practice than I am. You've inspired me here, though: I'm going to do some writing today!

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  2. I'm not sure if a calendar would work in my bathroom since it's so large (seriously, it doubles as my workout space), but I like the idea of having a large perpetual calendar up.

    Yes, write on! Share your beautiful penmanship (and sentiments, of course!) with others!

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