Penpals - A Lost Art

There really is nothing better than getting a letter or card in the mail. So often we are so busy that we forget the pure joy of opening a card that someone hand-picked for you or reading a letter that was written for your eyes only.

When I was in grade school, I had a pen pal. I wish now that I had not lost touch with her. She was in another country and we exchanged many letters, learning all types of things about each other that would not have been shared otherwise. I came across some of these letters recently, filed away in an old box of school keepsakes. I re-read several of them, holding them to my heart after I finished and relishing the written words on the pages. In these letters as children, we shared our hopes and our dreams. We wondered about our futures, we wished wondrous things for each other. We talked about siblings, our family, our schools, what our future husbands might be like and many, many other subjects.

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I wonder what her family looks like now, how many children she had or did not have. How her life has turned out? Was she successful? Did she become a teacher like she wanted to or did her life take her down a completely different path?

Reading her letters made me want to reach out to someone, anyone and start a new mail chain. Reach out and touch someone the way she and I touched each other and made our large worlds seem smaller in some way. We were oceans away from each other, but every time I got a letter from her the distance seemed to fall away like she was right next door.

In our electronic age, we are dehumanizing and forgetting how to simply reach out and touch someone with the caress of our written words. We are forgetting how to personalize things and make them expressly for those you care about. I often told my fiancé, now husband of almost 20 years, that I would much rather get a handwritten note from him, even just a few sentences. Something like that means so much more to me than flowers or candy or any gift he could give me. Often the best things in life cost very little. A stamp still is less than a dollar today. Stop now, today and write something to someone you love and put it in the mail to them. I promise it will make a big difference.

Questions and/or comments are welcome. 

The Kindness of Strangers

Today I was pleasantly surprised by the kindness of many strangers. The kids and I had volunteered at the Texas Trash Off which I will blog about later and post. I promised the kids a cupcake reward for being such great first time volunteers, so we were in the car on the way to Cupcake Junkie.

We rounded the bend on 29^th Street after passing the Hilton hotel and happened to see an older man on a hoveround type chair in the oncoming car lane. There was another bend which would keep oncoming cars from seeing him and I was about to say this out loud when we saw him bump into the curb on accident and fall over onto the ground. There is no sidewalk on either side of this road for him to have been on instead of the road, so his fall left him off his chair on the grass and his chair sticking out into the road.

Ripples Fan Into Waves

One of my fondest childhood memories is visiting my grandparent’s lake house on Lake Corpus Christi. Almost every Sunday we would go to visit and it was the best part of the week for me. The adults would most often stay inside and watch tv. Sometimes I would stay inside also, sitting in a chair next to my grandma’s recliner. I’d embroider or crochet depending on what I was working on at the time. The light was best right next to her, sitting about 4 feet from the sliding glass back door. Every so often she’d jump up and run out to reel in the pole she was watching because it would twitch. If she didn’t catch anything, out to the end of the pier she would go to cast the line then let it out as she came all the way back to the porch. She caught some big catfish that way and her fried catfish and beans was one of the best meals ever. 

Pay It Forward Green University

Together we can bring this country back. It takes one person, one family at a time. Our  Pay It Forward Green University is a way to learn about convenient ways to not only save money, but reduce, reuse and recycle at the same time. It’s activity and a way of life being spread by people like you and me all over the United States. We are sharing how we restore people’s faith in themselves as they learn how we pay it forward every day.