52 Letters, 52 Weeks: Pushing the Envelope

Homemade envelopes made from re-purposed calendars.

It's already March, and I have been completely rockin' on my New Year's Resolution this year, much to my own surprise and bewilderment. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was inspired to join the 52 Letters Project, in which you just commit to sending one physical piece of mail per week to someone you love for an entire year. Not only did it appeal to my love of communicating, but it was a way to wean myself, if only slightly, off my dependence on email and texting.

Today's post is just a little nod to the good ol' envelope. I have a stationary stash, and I always stop a little too long in stores to look at pretty cards and papers and postcards. Sometimes I feel like the envelope is just an afterthought. But sometimes you just use plain ol' white paper to write on, and it's fun to wrap it up in something pretty.

I didn't originate this idea: years ago, my husband and I received a beautiful handwritten letter in a re-purposed calendar envelope and I thought it was such a cute idea. So now I do it, asking my friends and relatives for old calendars they don't need anymore. A couple times I've used the heavier paper of an old map for the same purpose. The paper seems durable enough, and they often make beautiful envelopes, which I hope is a nice cheerful surprise to the letter receiver. I just affix address labels so the poor postal workers don't have to squint to make out the address.

I'm not crafty, so this is just right for me: I just use a regular envelope as a template. I don't know about you, but I find a little time at the kitchen table with a scissors and a glue stick to be quite relaxing.

The best part of the 52 Letter Project is that I've begun receiving some handwritten letters in my mailbox in return! Yes, this is a New Year's Resolution I can get used to.

Genetics are Funny

When we have children, we expect them to inherit certain things from us. One of my sons has my blue eyes, while the other 3 kids have eyes like their Daddy's. Other traits proudly passed on to our kids include cowlicks, crooked teeth in need of orthodontia, bad eyesight sprinkled in with a few allergies.

But then there have been some surprises: things we didn't think were traits that were necessarily genetic. For instance, I discovered that one of my kids gets stage fright after a performance. Just after a music performance, we found one of my sons sitting on the floor, breathing heavily, with his face flushed red. It seems strange, but I remember the same experience as a child, after I had performed at a piano recital. Maybe rather than calling it post-stage fright, I should refer to it as an intense adrenaline crash.

This morning I discovered something else that is apparently genetic: vandalism.

Just under our breakfast bar, I discovered that my daughter, Eva, had written her name on our *ahem* recently painted wall. At least she put a heart next to her name. And, as I can only imagine, she started feeling guilty about drawing on the wall with a red pen, so she quickly added a "P" in front of the name to disguise her identity.

I don't think I was a bad child, but I have a long, oft-repeated history of vandalizing my childhood home. I remember the green polar bear I scrawled on our dining room wall with a crayon, and the little flap of wallpaper I peeled back in our downstairs hallway where I drew, with a pretty purple felt-tip pen, the picture of a family driving in a car. (I pulled back that little flap of wallpaper often, to admire my handiwork, where I hoped it was obscured from the rest of the family). The time I attempted a mural, as it were, on my parents' master bedroom wall in permanent marker will go down in the history books. I was rather proud of my life-size portrait of monkeys hanging from a tree branch until I saw my poor Mom's reaction. I remember her scrubbing that masterpiece with some special cleaner from the store and a whole lot of elbow grease.

My Mom threw up her hands and said, "Carol! What am I going to do with you?"

I can only imagine I pouted out my bottom lip, suddenly feeling very remorseful, probably mostly for being caught. I reached back into my brain, and grasped at a recent Sunday School lesson.

"You could … forgive me," I said.

So now I'm getting what I deserved: a little vandal of my own. Either that, or I need to lock my doors against vandals named "Peva" who break into my house with red pens and have a thing for hearts.

Either way, it's time to get out some cleaner and a sponge.