PenPals

My cousin, Debbie, had this great little idea. She decided to write a letter...on paper, with ink, and an envelope and stamp (shocking, I know!)...and send it to one of our cousins (of which we have mmmmannnnyyy). Then she instructed said cousin to write one of her own and put both her letter and Debbie's letter into an envelope and send it to the next cousin on the list (me). When I got the letters I was enchanted. What a great idea. There were two handwritten letters, and even some of Cousin #2's cute little business cards and a brochure from the company she sells bags through called Thirty-One. So I got out some stationery, blew the dust off, and layed on my bed (yes, with coffee and magazine to thumb through) and wrote the story of my recent life on paper. Then I sent it off to the next in line. Soon I'll be getting a big envelope full of the rest of the letters as it comes back around. 

One of the best things about this little penpal experiment is that these cousins are the people I spent every summer with as a child. My grandfather owned a strawberry farm and the whole family would gather there nearly every summer day of strawberry season, and work the farm. My cousin's and I (mostly girls aside from my brother and my cousin Josh) would run off and spend the day playing pretend, and feasting on sun-warmed berries and fudge pops while the grownups worked and the boys rode bikes. I think we all get to thinking about being together around this time of year, so this was a perfect, more intimate way to satisfy that urge. We all live far away from each other with families of our own now, and we don't always have time or money to travel back to the homeland, but this chunk of handwritten love full of summertime ponderings of the heart from all my gals makes everyone seem much closer.