Do you have a pen pal that you send old-fashioned letters (snail mail) to?  Or did you have one when you were a kid? How do you feel about writing and getting letters?

I grew up in a small town and always dreamed of seeing the word and meeting different people.  During middle and high school, I had  pen pals from around the world.  Several of them and I kept in touch for years, sending letters, mix tapes (no CDs or MP3 playlists!), recipes, and other little gifts back and forth.   I loved sending and receiving letters, but unfortunately we lost touch.  And then, of course, email and texting became much more common and people stopped writing letters as frequently.

However, even as an adult, I still love stationery and pens and ink and crafting a handwritten letter.  For the last couple of years I've sent holiday cards to have a reason to buy cute cards and stamps.  In February, I wrote 28 letters as part of International Correspondence Writing Month (InCoWriMo) and was lucky enough to get about a dozen letters from people, too.  I was like a little kid every time I had a letter waiting for me!  One of my goals for this year is to write a letter to someone in every US state (50 in total) and send a few more letters to international pen pals, too.