An Ethical Will is a document plainly understood as a legacy letter. Traditional ethical wills, originating in the Biblical period, were the responsibility of fathers to transmit ethical values to their sons. Contemporary ethical wills are written at every age, often in times of transition and personal challenge by men and women alike. – Excerpt from Life-Legacies by Rachel Freed

When I became a mother I started writing letters to my son because, at first, I was afraid I wouldn’t be up to the task of motherhood and it seemed inevitable that I’d mess it up in some way and that eventually he would do what all kids frequently do… torment their parents about all the ways they messed up their children resulting in years of therapy and thousands of dollars in “couch time”. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be nice if my son had a chance to know me as I am NOW when he is a baby because by the time he is able to have adult conversations with me I will be a vastly different person than I am now. I will be a different mom than I first was and he will never have a way to know that FIRST mommy that I used to be.”

As I wrote these letters I found myself passing on bits of advice and other things I thought were important, little things I wondered if my boys would ever sit still long enough for me to tell them, things they would probably just roll their eyes at. To be fair, I never appreciated the advice people gave me until I got well into my 20’s. I think that’s just human nature, a simple issue of maturity.

Today I ran across a web site that talks about legacy letters or ethical wills. These are documents you can write to pass on your values to your children or grandchildren as a legacy to them, just like you might pass on your grandmother’s tea set or whatever.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all had documents like this from our fathers, mothers, grandparents, and many many more way back to hundreds of years to the past? What a fabulous legacy! Would you consider writing one to your children or other relatives?

Go check out the site at Life-Legacies. The site has some sample legacy letters as well as a free e-newsletter that contains tips that will help you make your own letters. At the site you can also read about how legacy letters can not only benefit those who come after you but how it can help you in your life today.

Tags: ethical will, family, heritage, legacy letters

I ran across a blog called “Please Don’t Eat Sushi! Love, Mom”

Once I got there I couldn’t stop reading. It’s a collection of letters curated from this fella. All the letters are from his mom and they are strange… short, intense, surreal, possibly crazy. I can’t decide if I’m looking at “real” crazy or just someone who is strangely quirky with a sense of humor. Right now I’m leaning toward plain old garden-variety crazy. No offense to the son, of course. Anyway, definitely worth a read.

I had my own bit of letter writing crazy with my dad’s mom. I have them all somewhere and hope to unearth them one of these days and share them. All she did all day long is write letters. Hers were long, page after page, and filled with newspaper clippings with scribbles in the margins. Sometimes other people’s letters were included and those were scribbled on, too. She always had a running commentary on life and now that I think about it would have made on awesome blogger had she been born later.

She’s gone now and I miss her brand of crazy. Who in your family writes you letters? Do you have any good stories you can share with me?

Tags: crazy letters, web site

I recently read an interesting article about the poet Frank O’Hara who wrote a poetry book called “Lunch Poems”.

The article discussed these wonderful little poems about New York that O’Hara would whip out during his lunch break, usually 30 minutes or less. In plain language they captured the essence of the city around him. He never let the time interfere with his passion for writing and made writing at lunch his daily ritual.

It’s easy to allow our busy lives to be an excuse to not write letters. I have a two year old and, believe me, if anyone has a “busy” excuse it would be me. But I was so inspired by this article. Heck, I have to stop and eat lunch… why not eat for half my lunch and jot a letter for the other half? Just a quick note — love notes, thank you notes, appreciation notes, little poems. What can you write during your lunch hour?

Try it for a week and see what happens.

Tags: lunch letters, time management

It’s time for another installment of “Random Acts of Letter Writing“! (These are quickly becoming my favorite pasttime!)

Our “victim” this time will be Richard B. Griffin, prolific columnist, who has recently written an article about letter writing for Wicked Local Cambridge. In this article he speaks of writing letters to his friend Bob, but also mentions the father of essayist Anne Fadiman who said, “the morning mail functions as the voice of the unpredictable and keeps alive for a few minutes a day the keen sense of the unplanned and the unplannable.”

So, let’s be inspired by this. Go read his article, then go forth and help Mr. Griffin keep alive the keen sense of the unplanned. He can be reached at:

Richard B Griffin
17 Howland St
Cambridge, MA 02138-1919

Just so none of you think I’m a big, creepy stalker… his phone number is on his web page and his address is easily searchable in the online white pages and I matched the two up. I think someone who puts his phone number on his web site probably isn’t too worried about someone like me finding him.

Tags: ralw, random acts of letter writing, richard griffin

Kids from Valley Park Schools in St. Louis had an unlikely project for their P.E. class… writing letters! Apparently the philosophy at Valley Park is to frequently integrate writing into the curriculum wherever they can, even sports!

So the kids were directed to write essays about sports figures who inspire them. They then sent the essays and letters to the athletes and have actually gotten a great rate of response.

You can read more about this inspiring article at: STLtoday

Who inspires you? Why not write a letter to someone who inspires you? And how about sending it? Even if you don’t get a response, won’t you feel great sending some great vibes their way? Jot me a note and tell me who inspires you and why. We can all use a little inspiration!

[photo credit: Erik Charlton]

Tags: athletes, inspiration, kids, News, to-do

Ladies and Gentlemen… we have a winner for our handmade card giveaway: Ali Holt! Congratulations, Ali!

She will be receiving these lovely cards from Blue Chair Studio and her choice of adorable BookGoddess which was Deena MacRae.

Hello Card from Blue Chair Studio

Deena MacRae BookGoddess from Blue Chair Studio

Thanks so much to Elizabeth of Blue Chair Studio for teaming up with me for this giveaway. And thanks to all of you who entered. I hope to be doing more of these in the future, so stay tuned!

Tags: giveaway, handmade cards, shopping

Don’t forget to register for the
Handmade Card Giveaway.
Entry deadline is May 15, 2009!
CLICK HERE!

I was standing in the kitchen cooking spaghetti and catching up on some email at the same time (quite the multi-tasker, I am) and suddenly a message arrived from Nigel Alston, our latest Random Acts of Letter Writing victim!

Mr. Alston accepted our guerrilla letter writing most graciously and even surprised me by writing about it at his newspaper! So, I do encourage you to wander on over and read his lovely tip-of-the-hat in our direction. Also, pay special close attention to the responses he got from friends from his letter writing at Lent (which is how this whole thing started). It will inspire you by reminding you why letter writing is important and valuable.

Have you written a letter today? Go do that while I run off to look for our next “victim”!

(Thanks, Nigel.)

[photo credit: Ayumi]

Tags: random acts of letter writing

Don’t forget to register for the
Handmade Card Giveaway.
Entry deadline is May 15, 2009!
CLICK HERE!

Build Your Own New York Postcard Series

If someone would have said to me, “I’m going to come up with some kind of cool way to make a postcard that you can turn into 3-D buildings of New York City” I would have said, “Yeah, sure you are.”

Obviously, I would not get very far in the clever postcard designing business.

Check out the very cool Build Your Own New York web site and see what kind of nifty postcards they have. If you look around you will probably find some other interesting cities as well. You could be in for lots and lots of fun!

Tags: postcard, shopping

Don’t forget to register for the
Handmade Card Giveaway.
Entry deadline is May 15, 2009!
CLICK HERE!

a few pieces of mail art

Struts Gallery in Canada is holding a mail art challenge. They are asking the question, “What can you send us without and envelope?”

They are accepting submissions for the entire month of May. You can send them to:

NAKED POST
Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre
7 Lorne Street
Sackville NB
Canada E4L 3z6

[photo credit: ame nielsen]

Tags: mail art

I am VERY excited to announce our first giveaway. Hopefully the first of many!

For our first giveaway, I am honored to be partnered up with Elizabeth Levi of Blue Chair Studio.

Elizabeth has lived a full and varied life. She grew up in Iowa, headed West for a while, became a wife, a mother, an artist and then the pendulum swung back, landing her back in Iowa after a long road of adventuring.

Elizabeth’s style is colorful and carefree. She finds inspiration in art supplies and found objects of every medium. Her philosophy is that people should not be so quick to judge themselves when they’re making art or to give up too soon on their creativity. She thinks an artist is “a person who is willing to put fear in their pocket while they waltz with mistakes and polka with problems, and then frame the mistakes that come out just right.” What a great attitude!

And so without further adieu, here is the info about our giveaway! Elizabeth has been kind enough to offer a set of SIX lovely handmade notecards (seen below). These are printed on 80-pound cardstock, then hand embellished with paint, paper, ephemera and Elizabeth’s adorable stylings. All the cards are blank on the inside, but have varied messages on the outside: Hello (2), Congratulations, Get Well, Thank You, and Happy Birthday. A nice selection of colored envelopes are included for mailing.

Hello Card from Blue Chair Studio

Here’s how to play:

The winner will be chosen by random number generation. You can get multiple entries to increase your chances of winning. The list is below. The deadline to enter is May 15, 2009 at 11:59PM (central time). The drawing will be announced the next day and posted here.

For your first chance to win, go visit the Blue Chair Studio shop, browse around to find your two favorite items, then come back and leave a comment telling which were your favorites and why. In addition to listing your two favorite items, if you also post in the comment field what your favorite bookGoddess is, Elizabeth will send that to you if you turn out to be the winner.

For FIVE additional chances to win, you can do any of the following. Do as many or as few as you like. Or none. These are completely OPTIONAL:

• Subscribe to my RSS feed and leave a comment saying you’ve done so
• Make a post on your own blog about the giveaway and put a link to A Passion for Letter Writing and Blue Chair Studio then comment that you’ve done so
• Tweet about the giveaway on Twitter with a link to this post and then leave a comment with your Twitter ID and that you’ve tweeted it.
• Add A Passion for Letter Writing to your blogroll and leave a comment with your web address
• Make a purchase at Blue Chair Studio between now and the contest deadline and post a comment telling me what you’ve ordered. (One additional chance for each $10 spent.)

IMPORTANT: Please leave separate comments for each of the items you do because that’s how I’m keeping track of entries!

So, you can have up to a total of SIX chances to win. Good luck, everyone and enjoy. Whoever wins this one is LUCKY! The cards are so pretty and colorful. Really lovely.

Tags: contest, free stuff, giveaway, stationery