i'm back! week 5

I bet you thought I forgot about you all.

Honestly, I got behind in writing my letters (the postcard assignment tripped me up and another letter was written and lost, but eventually found) and being home for the summer with the kids - well... you know... sometimes your schedule is not your own.

But the other day, I sat down and wrote four letters and I've already gotten an email thanking me for one of them. So I'm trying to get back on track here.

This week, I have a special assignment. My plan was not to blog about politics on this site, but I am going to ask you to take part in a Photobomb. I read about this on Karen Walrond's site, Chookooloonks, and I have to participate. She explains it best, so go there and check it out.

Then find one of your own photos (I'm using the one above) and make a postcard of it. Then send it off to Karen so she can use it to photobomb for peace. Postmarked by August 25th.

Come back and tell me if you did it. What did you write on it?

week 4

Did you send a postcard last week? We head out of town tomorrow and I'll be sending my postcards over the weekend.

This week, we're going to go REALLY old fashioned and write a letter to an older person. And by older, I mean elderly. Kids and old people LOVE letters.

Several years ago, when I was home with a houseful of tiny kids and changing more diapers a day than I care to even remember, one of my aunts used to send me letters telling me what a good mom I am, how cute my kids are, how hard it is when they're so little. All the things I needed to hear. It was a huge ray of sunshine for me. I still have all of them.

Now, that aunt is quite elderly. She lives with one of her daughters and needs help to do most things. She probably doesn't write letters anymore, but I like to return the great favor she did for me by sending her letters. They don't say anything earth-shattering. I just tell her about my day and what the kids are doing. I try to make her laugh. I don't hear back from her, but I KNOW how much a little letter can keep a person going. Because she did it for me.

So write to your grandmother or grandfather. Or an aunt or uncle. Or some other elderly person who would be thrilled to get a real, live letter.

week 3

Sorry this is going up later than planned! My kids are out of school for the summer now and I'm doing my best to limit my online time.

Before your assignment this week, I have a brief rant. I've been looking at stationery the past few weeks. (Actually, I am ALWAYS on the lookout for stationery, but I expanded my search to a few well-known local stores after I started this project.)

And can I say? They don't make stationery like they used to! EVERYTHING is either a tiny correspondence card or a fold-over card, which is only slightly better. When I write a letter, I want to WRITE A LETTER. If I could fit it on a tiny card, I'd just send an email for God's sake! Those are nice to stick in a package or gift, but not for writing a juicy, catching up, here's what's happening in my life kind of letter. Right? Maybe we're all just supposed to keep in touch via Facebook status updates now.

I mentioned my favorite set of personalized stationery from when I was a kid. It even had front pages (with my name embossed on them) and following pages, with no name at the top. You were SUPPOSED TO WRITE more than 1 page. That was how ALL stationery was - I had a huge collection.

I should mention, I did find some Crane stationery online which isn't EXACTLY what I want, but its close. It's called Letter Writing Stationery. Now there's an idea. I'm still on the hunt for a local store with more casual options. (I love Crane paper, but the designs are more traditional than what I'm looking for.) If you have a tip for me, let me know.

Ok, so on to week 3!

It's summer vacation time for us. And with my current dissatisfaction with available stationery, we're going with postcards this week. Send a postcard to someone who's not expecting one.
If you live in a place where there are postcards readily available (we live just outside of Washington, DC, so postcards are everywhere), send one from home.

Or, if you want to wait until your vacation week, do that. But bring addresses and stamps! (Things I always forget which is why I never send postcards.)

I sent a postcard from home to a little friend who is collecting postcards a few weeks ago. And next week, we're leaving on vacation, so I'm planning to send postcards to some neighbors who are moving into a new house while we're gone. Maybe I'll be their first piece of official mail!

If you have no idea who to send a postcard to, check out Postcrossing. You can send and receive postcards from around the world. I'm going to have my kids try it for a summer project.

Week 2

How'd we all do with Week 1?

If you didn't get your letter written, don't worry! Just move on to this week.

My apologies for not responding to comments up to now. I thought I had things set up to get an email when I got a comment, but I didn't. After this, I will either respond by email or in another comment on the same post - depending on if it's relevant to everyone or not.

It's the last week of school here. I am scrambling trying to think of teacher gifts. My favorite little Etsy shop for personalized stationery went out of business.

I keep reading that two of the best teacher gifts are gift cards (I think I'm going to do Amazon) and letters thanking them for their dedication.

So this week, I'm going to write to my 4-year old's preschool teacher. She had a fabulous year, and will have the same teacher again for kindergarten. She is everything you hope that first teacher will be. If I could bottle her up and take her all the way through 12th grade, I would. So I'm going to write her and tell her that.

I'm also going to have my 9-year old daughter write to her teacher. This is the very first school year she's had where she and her teacher still like each other at the end of the year. I'd bottle her up if I could too.

So write to a teacher this week. Your kid's teacher. One of your old teachers. A friend who is a teacher. Who are you going to pick?