Letter Month is great for snails.

Hello! February has started in Portland and it is pretty grey and gross. There are spots of sun, but let's not get our hopes up. I know the groundhog Punxsatawny Phil predicted early spring, but c'mon. We always act surprised when we are doing Easter Egg hunts in polar fleece, but it always happens. I don't get excited about warmth until at least the end of June. Needless to say, I am seriously wanting for a getaway. Usually, we seem to have a trip planned, even in the distant future, but not so right now. It's a little sad. Anyway, one thing that has kept me upbeat is LETTER MONTH! Yes, a friend on Twitter got me in on this deal and in February my challenge to myself is to write one letter a day. I personally LOVE getting mail. Lately, my mailbox is only full of junk ads and the occasional God Awful Water bill. Not very exciting. But letters! Yay! Real hand written letters are a treasure. It hasn't been as easy as I thought to keep up. It's the ninth and I have only officially sent out 7 letters. Pretty good, and I guess I can give myself Sundays off for obvious reasons. NO, not because I am praying for anything except spring and grocery coupons, because there's no mail pickup, silly. And apparently Saturday too, pretty soon? I bought some pretty Valentine's stamps and I have a stash of stationery and cards just dying for some ink. I received my first letter back today! It was very exciting and from a friend who I know only via Twitter, so it was fun to hear more about her life and in her own hand in more than 140 characters at a time. I think I have a queue of about 15 letter recipients. I think I will get to everyone. I just start writing, sometimes it is a little history of myself, but that story gets old to tell so mostly it is just randomness happening right now where I am. I kept thinking I would get real creative and make some little doodles, but something is stopping me. It's me. I know, that was an easy one. Duh. I am writing to people I barely know, people I have known since childhood and people I see all the time as well as friends from the past who I don't see very often. It's fun. You should try it. There is nothing like slowing down and writing a letter. There is nothing like receiving one, either. It's a very personal thing. I still have the letters my husband wrote me when I came home from college over the summer. We were just "shacked up" then, during the first school year. His had darling sketches and he would cut down the envelopes to make them a cute square shape (before this was all the rage...he was always the trendsetter, that one) of course, not knowing they would come to my house, Postage Due with a tiny glassine envelope for me to put an extra dime or whatever into for the mail carrier. Seems so old fashioned, right? But kind of dear, too. I should send my husband a letter for old time's sake. But we already ordered him a rat skeleton. (Just making sure you were paying attention, there. But it's for real. We are Portlanders after all.)