In the age of the internet, there's no "need" to write letters anymore. I think there's something awesome about getting snail mail though. My son and my friend's daughter are pen pals, which I think is pretty awesome. They're only three, so they really just draw pictures and send each other stickers. Anyone else still write letters to people?
*MAMA*.... my dorkiest habit (though I haven't been keeping up with my mail lately... I've been a really bad pen pal in the past year or so but I plan on soon catching up w everybody soon), is that I have been writing to pen pals since I was 13. I currently have 30 of them and only 3 of them are in the U.S.- the rest are in Australia, Austria, Germany, England, Ireland, Japan, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Malta, Hungary, and some other places... we are all kind of interesting (if you're into this kind of thing) and weird... we type the letters now n then if we're behind but usually we always hand write them and we usually use cute stationary-kawaii... san-x stationary, sometimes sanrio, but usually it's Japanese papers and letter sets... cute stickers...and we swap things like fbs (friendship books) and decos and slams.... I have met some of my overseas pals through the years and we are all pretty close (a lot of us write to the same people)... it's kind of it's own little, dorky world but you know... a lot of my pals are really good people who I text with and talk to online and who send gifts for my son's bday every year and who have really been here for me through the years for different things. Anyways, yea, it's my one strange hobby. My best female friend is my pal, Allie, from England. I've been writing to her for 10 years and she's visited with me twice when she was visiting the U.S.- I really hope to get over to see her in the next couple years...as soon as Cason can get in a plane for that long..
ha. yea... what REALLY confuses me is sometimes I get letters from prisoners (always guys) saying they got my contact info from an fb and for the LIFE of me I don't understand how these people GET fb's. Because fb's are little booklets (very neat and decorated nice, the ones I swap anyways. I'm kinda snobby against the messy ones that some people swap), filled with address labels of people's info. When I was in jail my husband tried to send me some of my fb's and they, of course, got taken as contraband (before I ever received them), because you, of course, while in jail cannot have pieces of paper with any type of address label or sticker on them because you could put drugs under the sticker or label or what not. So, no way were they letting me have my fb's... so these prisoners get a hold of them somehow and I have no clue how... oh, well, I do think actually people have it easier in federal prisons, than jails... for what they are allowed to have that is. Anyways, I never write back to the prisoners.. not once. I also never write back to any guy.
That's awesome! Malachi was, "writing" his letter for his little friend today, and I just realized what a lost art it was. That's way cool that you still do that.
a couple of friends of mine recently sent some snail mail letters to a few friends, myself included. I've been meaning to write them back. I thought it was an awesome idea; we don't get to see each other as often as we used to and sending snail mail seems so much more meaningful than sending the occasional text or message on facebook.
Not anymore, no, but from age 9 until about 16 I was penpals with one of my best friends who moved from here to Kentucky. At about 16 it turned to e-mails and eventually that turned to IMs and then Facebook. We have zero in common these days, so it's pretty much just a keeping in touch for old time's sake sort of thing. Only person I know of that I'd write a letter to is in prison after taking the fall for another girl drunk driving and killing two people (other girl ran around bragging about it after the first girl got locked up), and even though she's got a penpal profile thing set up online, they scan the letters and say straight up on the website if you know them in real life, your letter won't go through. I just wish I could extend my best wishes to her and let her know she's not hated by everyone here at home.
I can send you some of the fb's and decos sometime so you can see what they are.... some of them are actually pretty awesome. I'm waaay behind in my palling though But luckily I've known most of my pals for years and years and they understand how life is sometimes..
That would be awesome! Definitely send me those . Yeah, I'm that way too with things when life gets crazy. From last October until February of this year, I totally fell off the face of the earth with everyone who wasn't directly involved in my life. I go through phases of being really great with communication, to being a complete hermit.
Yeah, that's how I am with everything. With the penpalling and swapping world (we all swap things from fbs, slams, decos... stickers and stationary and also sometimes things like postcards or fridge magnets, scrapbooking supplies *the decos and stuff are pretty much made w scrapbooking supplies anyways* and various other things..) is i'll be writing back to people really quick for a while and then just get busy (or burnt out from writing so much- as much as I love to write it can hurt your hand to write letters all the time!) and end up taking a break for a couple months to a year or so... since I've had a kid it's harder to keep up with the letters because if I try to write a letter with Cason beside me he's all OVER the pen. He freaking loves pens and does not wanna let me write without him "writing" too. lol. But anyways yea, I'll send you some good ones and some stationary too. I have a collection of it. (the saddest thing that happened w my pen pals is this girl who I wrote to for years and years and years...who would write the sweetest, cutest letters... her name was catharina and she was from Denmark. back when this happened I had a facebook and she was on my facebook and I ended up finding out on there that she died in her sleep. she was apparently healthy- or she thought she was...her dad's a doctor too and she didn't abuse drugs and drink too much or smoke cigs... basically not someone you'd expect to die young..anyways, she died in her sleep from a rare heart problem (the term starts with an A... but I forget it?) sleep one night. She was 28 years old. Anyways, a whole bunch of my pals wrote to her also and we were all sad. Her best friend, IRL, ended up sending us all a recording from her memorial service...her family is Japanese and it was some kind of traditional Japanese service and really beautiful. Kinda at least felt like we got to be a part of it..)
My son has a pen pal in Africa. They have been pals for 11 years and write to each other a half a dozen times a year. He got this fellows name from a guidance counsellor who had worked in that area and this child wanted a Canadian pen pal. It has been really interesting to see them both grow up through the mail.
The only mail I ever get is junk mail and bills. And most of my email is spam but some of it is correspondants with friends and family and the rest tracking numbers for the research chemicals I've purchased. I do send cards through the mail sometimes though.
