Paper Letters

One of my goals for this year was to send letters, send cards. And I wasn't doing so well. Maybe I sent a couple, but it was nothing to keep the postal service busy.

Then, suddenly, the new year arrived, bringing with it this resolve. I wanted to do the things that I valued, the things I seemed to have been forgetting as I worked to set up a new life, once again.

And with that has come the letter-writing.

Nothing major, you understand. I send a page or so of my thoughts, written down. Small missives (or missiles? I thought so for a moment), to someone far away.

For inspiration, I've been turning to a couple of online sources: The Post-A-Letter Social Activity Club (if you're lucky enough to live in Toronto or Montreal, this looks fantastic) and Send More Mail.

Even my fiction has been epistolary this week. I found The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society in the sale section of my favourite bookshop, and read it through this weekend (another new ritual is Sunday mornings that are all my own).

It was the perfect book for today, for this week. I am so glad I thought to slip it into the pile with the magazines I had gone to purchase.

#4 Things I'll miss about Vancouver

I'm super-excited about my impending move; as much as I hate change, I love moving forward, and making changes. But there are a number of things that I will miss madly when I leave Vancouver (and I'm crossing my fingers I'll come back to these!).

1. Commercial Drive grocery stores

2. Paper-Ya

3. Craft Fairs/Portobello West

4. Bike routes & pretty bike stores

5. The local produce

6. Mountains

7. Skytrain

8. Siegel's (& Solly's)

9. Rain, rain, rain, rain

10. Science World's silhouette

11. Crunchy vegetarian restaurants

12. Washington so close by

13. The people. Definitely.

#3 Things I actually like about Mondays (and this one in particular)

1. They signal a new beginning, however small

2. I have "important things" to do out in the world again.

3. They're not Tuesdays or Wednesdays (where things get truly bad).

4. It's a mail day.

5. Monday night television (to be watched later, always).

6. Monday is the 2nd best day for a statutory holiday.

7. Mondays are sometimes holidays.

8. On Mondays, the stores are open for longer than weekends.

9. Monday only happens once a week.

And *this* Monday:

10. The first day of the VACC's Bike to Work Week

11. Rainy days and Mondays don't get this girl down.

12. Pay day!

13. An evening spent with Em after her weekend away.

14. The last day of a May I did *not* love.

15. This list, which is stretching my brain.

Right ON!

Sitting here reading this: http://mightygirl.com/2010/05/19/how-to-write-your-life-list-10-simple-tips-for-a-better-life/ when a co-worker came by and told me that she was inspired to take a course like this: http://www.sfu.ca/wpp/twwbb.htm.

If you're not doing it, why not?

28 things in my 29th year

I wrote a letter of intentions for myself at the beginning of the calendar year. Now, at the beginning of my personal year, I'm making a list of things to do (the idea comes from hulaseventy).

1. host a party.

2. photograph one thing every day.

3. take a french class.

4. visit Vancouver Island & the pink bicycle.

5. fly a kite.

6. build a smilebooth-alike.

7. sew a coat.

8. own a pair of fluevogs. or two.

9. visit Montreal.

10. see a symphony.

11. go weekend camping.

12. re-pierce my ears.

13. piece a quilt top.

14. treat myself to a night out.

15. make guerilla art.

16. beat Lego Harry Potter with Em.

17. roast a chicken.

18. Cure my space.

19. find (make, buy, build) a great dress.

20. create an office space (corner, closet, nook) for myself.

21. grow a kitchen garden.

22. have Pride.

23. fill a notebook.

24. learn to patch a tire.

25. bike the Greenway.

26. make 52 lists (from Andrea again).

27. send letters and cards.

28. avoid waste.