Emily Dickinson, for poem in your pocket day -

Once a year, the Academy of American Poets invites each of us to carry a poem to share.  This is my choice. 




I dwell in Possibility –

A fairer House than Prose –

More numerous of Windows –

Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –

Impregnable of eye –

And for an everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –

For Occupation – This –

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise –

Leaving Everything Most Loved - a review, and related meditation

One of the reasons I've been negligent about blogging is that I'm finding being retired to be less than a mixed blessing. In fact, I can't really call it a blessing at all. I was very, very focused for many, many years on my career. Its end was earlier than I would have chosen, as I've written here before, and the time since has not been easy, in many ways.

This afternoon, at Barnes & Noble, I helped a woman choose between two sets of flash-cards for her autistic nephew who loves historical facts. It’s the first time I’ve felt truly useful in … awhile. (Yes, it was a bit disconcerting to hear “can someone help me?” being called over the railing into the cafe, but once I saw she wasn’t in need of CPR or a tourniquet, it turned into an opportunity. I hope we chose well.)

Anyway, the one thing I can be counted on to do is read and comment. That the title of my latest read is related to how I feel about the above is pure coincidence. 


Leaving Everything Most Loved by Jacqueline Winspear
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Can one's life be too settled? Maisie Dobbs rejects the comfortable path as she works on two cases. One case, the murder of two Indian women, brings her to think of the role that country served in the lives of her two mentors, Khan and Maurice, and to wonder if she, too, needs to experience a journey out before she can make a choice.  Another case brings her back to neighborhoods she would have known as a child, a sharp contrast to her present circumstances. Other people in Maisie's life face choices and dilemmas, and another World War seems inevitable.

This is a slightly darker Maisie, and it left me even more eager to see what choices she makes next. As always, the writing is evocative and clean, and the characters as real as they come.

Highly recommended!


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Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

I've been negligent about blogging. I haven't been negligent about reading, though, and I have (at least) rated some books over at Goodreads. Some knitting has occurred, mostly socks, plus one silvery thing that (I hope) will make one of my friends happy next week.

Spoiler:

I love knitting lace...

Here's a review of the last book I read. It reminds me a little of a Barbara Pym plot gone slightly mad, with touches of the pain of Empire lingering in the hearts of some co-existing with the utterly dense hearts of a dying aristocracy. 

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I couldn't love this book more if it were made of dark chocolate and I could eat each page after I read it. There are some of the funniest set pieces I ever read - check out the meeting where characters select food and decor for a country-club dinner, and a walk-through of the most decrepit-yet-charming English cottage ever - as well as genuine characters who grow, change, love, and take up residence in your pantheon.
Recommended to -- everyone. 


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The Missing Ink - review

The Missing Ink: The Lost Art of Handwriting by Philip Hensher
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“Handwriting is good for you,” says Philip Hensher. “It involves us in a relationship with the written word which is sensuous, immediate, and individual.”

(The incontrovertible truth of the author’s conclusion is made so much more endearing, to me, by the nonchalant use of the Oxford comma.)

This is not an author who shies from his opinions, or from sharing his vocabulary. Haruspication! Really? Oh, Philip, how do I love thee?

The Missing Ink is a very personal amble with handwriting and pens. You get history, style, art, practice, and glances into strange places, real and virtual. How delectable to learn that there is a “gloriously mad blog” out there that teaches how to improve your penmanship by changing your menu? Or that the Prince of Wales writes long letters to various government ministries, imparting his philosophy in purple ink?

The subject of handwriting analysis yields treasures. What does one have to see to believe that the penman “would jump out of an aeroplane… and drink the homebrewed absinthe of a Serbian warlord”? (And what, I wonder, would that do to my own handwring?)

Hensler devotes an entire chapter to the pen that has been my own guilty pleasure for over half of a century: the Bic Cristal. How many of these have I used until the last of the black ink, long disappeared from view and confined only within the oh-so-solid confines of the point, finally discharges its last, perfectly-black line? I hoard them against the day that some scribbling tyrant decides these pens are no longer necessary in the corporate line.

I love to read about ink colors. Hensler says, “I am not quite convinced about writing with blue ink… It is cozy and friendly, but perhaps not very serious… Beyond [blue-black or black], we are really into exotic and faintly frightening territory.”

Were I to write to the author, I would respect his preferences, but in (almost) all other ventures, I profess a great love for the purple, the turquoise, the sepia – even the occasional oxblood.  I am, in most things, a child of the sixties.

(I do admit to having been chastised by a pen friend, once, for writing a red letter on yellow paper. Point, as it were, taken.)

Oxblood brings me back to Oxford. Yes, I love this book with all its whimsy, chattiness, and excellent punctuation. You – you know who you are – will also. I promise.


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Script & Scribble - a review

Script and Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting by Kitty Burns Florey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As a lifelong fancier of all things having to do with handwriting and pens, I adored this book and wished that I, too, had samples of my handwriting from childhood to the present.

Florey peppers the chapters with marginalia, including a response to her own rhetorical question about whether we should be concerned about being able to read old aunt Gertrude's illegible diary: no, because "everyone named Gertrude was thoroughly instructed in penmanship in school."

The author sent samples of her own deteriorated scribble to Kate Gladstone, who e-mailed many pages of suggestions, including a dandy idea for how to write a lower-case "k."  (First a downward stroke, then a quick, upward hook, followed by a separate, graceful downstroke.) I intend to get a copy of Getty's Write Now and start working on changing my idiosyncratic little letters into something with some class!

My favorite sentence in the book comes from a discussion of graphology and its connections to ancient beliefs:

A bronchiomancer could divine the will of the gods from the pattern made by a set of llama lungs hurled against a flat rock.

How can you not love a book that includes such a sentiment?


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what are the chances?

I believe in chaos and randomness. Unless something can be explained by the known laws of physics and chemistry, I don't believe in it. I reserve judgement on things I have experienced - my grandma Sadie's uncanny perceptions, for example, and the time something told me to swerve out of the lane seconds before a crushed car on a flatbed came flying off. My little elephant (VW beetle: elephant because it was grey and it had a trunk up front) would have been demolished, and I wouldn't have felt too good myself.

This one, though: too woo-woo for me.

Have you ever played with one of these? They're fun. They're also uncanny. Not so uncanny that they can't be explained by pretty standard AI stuff, but - uncanny. Especially if you think you've come up with a word that isn't simple. 

So there I was, at Barnes and Noble, and I decided to play with one. I thought of an animal and answered 5 questions. FIVE questions, and it got the answer right: "hedgehog."  

Really? Enough people think of hedgehogs to add it to a toy's database?  I guess so.  Next time I play with it, I'll have to think of something really different. Any suggestions to help me stump the toy? 

Why am I even writing about this? I guess, because I'd really like to believe in magic.

Anyway, here's some eye candy for you - my latest completed handspun. This one is "Chicken of the Forest," 180 yards of Corriedale, SW Merino, and Tussah silk from Enting Fibercraft. I might combine it with the green from the last post and make a fluttery little shawl. Or, I may just add it to my basket o'handspun and pet it. Either way. It's all good.

it begins with silk

This is the fiber that was bathing with my little duck the other day. 

Purty, isn't it? The colorway is called "Chocolate Mint," and the fiber was battified and sold by Naomi, whose shop is here. 

If you are a spinner, you can appreciate the soft, smooth, delicious fiber from the moment it arrives until the moment that it's a completed object. If you aren't a spinner, just imagine how soft and shiny a fluffy ball of 4 types of wool plus silk would be. 

(If you're a spinner or knitter, check out Naomi's fibers and yarns. They are always exquisite. She also makes lovely jewelry.)

I went to the Rhinebeck Sheep & Wool festival in October, where I took a class on my wee Finnewig inkle loom (no, "wee" and "inkle" are not the same thing), tried out lots of wheels, bought a couple (ahem) of spindles, and bought a book from Sarah Kilbourne, the author and descendant of William S. Skinner, a Victorian silk entrepreneur. American Phoenix details his arrival in the United States in 1845 and the creation of a successful silk business. It also tells about how that business was destroyed by the Mill River Flood in 1874 and rebuilt. I'll report on it soon.

In the meantime, I do want to tell you about one of the books that I read during those long days after the hurricane, when we had no electricity. I liked  Howe's first book, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, which I reviewed here. This one, I loved. I just wasn't feeling as verbose...


The House of Velvet and Glass by Katherine Howe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
  From the ornate dining-room of the doomed Titanic to the sitting- room of a medium, from the mean streets of 19th-century Shanghai to the investigations of
William James, Howe leads the reader through the illumination of one woman's mind and soul.  So much research went into this book! - and yet the reader is never pummeled with it.
One of the most delicious, sensual, and satisfying books I read all year.


When I say "one of the most," I mean that it wasn't on the same level as The Night Circus (reviewed here) - but few books are. Erin Morgenstern = genius. I wish for a new book, but in the meantime, there's a new Flax-Golden tale every Friday to make me happy. Today's tale is "Tools to build the stars." (Hint: visit her site every Friday...) And, if you have a few minutes hours to while away, brew yourself some tea, go to Pinterest, search "Night Circus," and settle in...

welcoming the new

Good afternoon. It's a sparkling-clean new year, yes? Good riddance to much of the old one. In fact, good riddance to most of the old one.

Or... maybe not. 2012 was tough. I had issues. Mother Nature had issues. I had issues with Mother Nature. (Who can forget Hurricane Sandy? Not this bird, after 13 days without electricity. Not many of my friends, who lost unimaginable amounts of things, both tangible and not-so-tangible.)

But - here it is, 2013, a new number to remember to write on checks, a new calendar, a new opportunity to focus on things that matter. Like, some of the things that I gained in 2012.

* Deep and deeper friendships, for example, including up-close friends who I was able to help through some bad times, and who were able to get me through my own stuff, and faraway friends who proved, yet again, that true friendship disregards both time and geography.
* A slow and astounding realization that I can do some things better than I ever thought I would. Spin.  Survive black-hole-gobsmackingly-horrible emotional whacks. Overcome a terror or two.
* A whole new bunch of music to love - Amanda Palmer comes to mind, and the awesome collaboration of Hilary Hahn and Hauschka for the CD "Silfra," a dual meditation by a master of the prepared piano and a violin virtuoso on the spirit of Iceland.
* A new musical instrument to learn and love - my ukulele.

Thirteen things I'd like to do, and/or do more:
* write here: it's fun and I forget that it's fun when I don't do it
* write my novels, poetry, journal, letters, for the pure joy of using pretty ink
* pluck a few chords and sing a few notes in the company of others
* explore new music and share it
* knit with my pretty, handspun yarn
* pick some things from The Knitter's Life List to try - stranded colorwork, for example.
* read more, and more widely, in unlikely areas
* learn to cook a few things that involve more than boiling water
* mentor more new knitters and spinners
* see my friends
* use the tools I have (spindles, looms, knitting needles), and release those I don't, or can't use
* start knitting or spinning projects if I feel like it, and abandon them if I feel like it
* be grateful and mindful

Why thirteen? Because my friend, Amy, of  Impossible is a typo, listed 13 things she wants to do for shits and giggle (not resolutions - not judgmental "shoulds") - and it looked like fun.

Let me share my last finished object of 2012: the black hole of Wingspan, a shawlette that took much more time than it would have, had I chosen yarn I could actually, you know, SEE? Unfolded, it looks like every other Wingspan. Here it is, origami form. You can decide what shape I folded.

two mysteries

I've been reading...


Wicked Autumn by G.M. Malliet
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Absolutely loved it. The book is positively overstuffed with tea, baked goods, British characters, and sly wit. I can not wait to read the next in the series, and the next. 

The Book of Mormon Girl: A Memoir of an American Faith by Joanna Brooks

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I was disappointed. When the author was on The Daily Show, I thought the book would go deeper into how a "Mormon feminist" would inter-react with LDS theology. She does go into detail about her fight against the Church's opposition to same-sex marriage, and how against-the-tide her marriage to a Jewish man is, but the rest of the details in the book are more cultural: food, clothing, relationships, etc.

I was impressed by her tales of Mormon industriousness - the sheer energy used to stockpile food, baptize their own (and everyone else's) ancestors, learn survival techniques, and bond with their history. Except for brief mentions of End Time philosophy, though, I did not get a sense of what beliefs separate LDS from other Christians. In fact, I was puzzled by the way she depicts how many evangelical Christians target Mormons even though both believe that the End Times are near.

Overall, not a terribly interesting book.

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Ten on Tuesday

 10 Favorite TV Shows from my Childhood. 



For the purposes of this list, I'm going to define "childhood" as "under 18," 'kay? And yes, I was a weird, intense child.

The Patty Duke Show. I have always been fascinated by twins, whether actual, spiritual, conjoined, or opposite. ("Conjoined?" you ask. Definitely. One of my greatest terrors is losing my privacy; the ultimate loss of privacy would be eternal, physical connection to another person.) Patty and Cathy did not represent two sides of me. If anything, Patty represented an alien creature who might as well have been from "The Twilight Zone" (see below) or "The Outer Limits." Cathy was closer - perhaps, at that time, the closest teenage character to whom I could have had a conversation.  


The Twilight Zone. Some episodes never have left me, like "Willoughby," and "Little Girl Lost." The first was like a projection of my own dreams: finding a place where I would fit in. The second made me certain that one day I'd find myself in an echoing, hallucinatory nowhere land. My family was so political that I was aware, even then, of the anti-McCarthyite and other underlying themes. Have there been many shows this entertaining and intelligent since? 

Dark Shadows. Multiple timelines. Glorious gothic creepiness. A major crush on Christopher Pennock, who played Jebez Hawkes.






Star Trek. Leonard Nimoy. Need I say more? Sometimes introduced important themes, sometimes entertained greatly, and always pushed limits.

Rainbow Quest. Pete Seeger. Eric Andersen. Richard and Mimi Farina. Donovan. Banjo.

The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Steve Martin. Leigh French. Donovan. John Hartford. Pete Seeger (who did, finally, get to sing "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy"). 





The Dick Van Dyke Show. Smart and funny. 

Shindig and Hullabaloo. Indistinguishable in my memories - I loved them both. 

and, finally -

Ben Casey. Broody, intense. Man, woman, birth, death, infinity, and Vince Edwards. 















What were yours?

The Poetry Project: Sara Teasdale

This month's Poetry Project guideline says to post a Pulitzer winner's poem, a perfect excuse to revisit Sara Teasdale.


             I Shall Not Care

When I am dead and over me bright April

    Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,

Tho' you should lean above me broken-hearted,

    I shall not care.

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful

    When rain bends down the bough,

And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted

    Than you are now.

happiness, and peculiar sadness of lemon cake

Just a quick book review today, and a couple of things that have made me happy. 

I was up late last night watching the ever-magnificent Pete Seeger on The Colbert Report.  I tweeted afterwards:

Pete Seeger on Colbert: quavery voice, mighty message, eloquent banjo hands. How can we keep from singing?

I can't remember a time when I didn't know and love Pete Seeger. We had Weavers records playing in my house all the time. We watched "Rainbow Quest" on television. My father and I played guitar and sang his songs. His politics were the politics of my family - and still are mine. Bless the man.

The night before, I was up late to follow the landing of Curiosity on Mars. Yes, I'm one of the geeks who had the images from the JPL on iPad at 1:30 a.m., whooping along when the good news came down.  Space exploration: it never gets old.

Now, the book: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. My wee writeup isn't particularly insightful, but one of my friends' comments is. The writeup:

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Part magical realism, part metaphor for the sensitivity each of us struggles with, and part bittersweet love story. 

Amy's comment:  

Oh! I loved this one too. Seems like most people I know didn't love it. I heard a lot of "but why didn't she use her special ability to help others?" which would have made for an incredibly sappy book. 

Exactly so. I guess a lot of people want everything to be Oprah-ready...because what good is understanding something delicate in oneself if you can't plaster it out over the networks? Sheesh! 

as I said, I'm getting a tattoo when I'm sixty

.... and I did. This one. I just brought her home, and I want to let her get a little acclimated before I start to play with her or subject her to a photo shoot. 
(Luna is an amazing company. Read all about it.)


Commence free-association:


I never even thought about playing ukulele until one of my Panera friends suddenly posted on FB - that she was thinking about learning how to play, and would any of us talk her out of it? Um, no, dear, we won't. We'll jump on the idea like baby bunnies into a field of carrots. 


Then we'll start scouring YouTube and coming up with amazing stuff - like a ukulele master who plays a totally acoustic uke version of "Bohemian Rhapsody," another who plays "Girl With the Flaxen Hair" (which sold me, utterly), and, of course, Zooey Deschanel singing "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve" (wearing a tiara - which, we have decided, will be a mandatory accessory for our Girl Group. I always wanted to be a Shangri-La, like my last-namesake, snapping my fingers and singing "Remember ** walking in the sand...")


I have a very spotty history when it comes to performing. I hate it. I hate being looked at, photographed, noticed. My childhood was stuffed so full of performing (ballet, viola, piano, guitar, etc.) that by the time I got to college, the only way I got through presentations was to take my glasses off and allow my myopia to erase the audience. Once I could, I avoided "performing" in venues larger than a conference room, and only if I knew all of the people at the table. For years.


However. This might be a little different. If nothing else, it's a totally new way for me to have fun, and that has to be a good thing, yes? We're all jazzed about the idea of playing at the Holidome in Rhinebeck. 


Yes, I've been knitting. I'm almost done with a pair of Pumpkin Pie Socks (shown here in their infancy), a Wingspan shawl in a black/navy/white/baby blue Crazy Zauberball, and a couple of other projects.

My husband and I have seen Loudon Wainwright III at least 4 times. A few weeks ago, he had his ukulele onstage, but didn't play it. Next time, maybe I'll bring mine along and have him sign it. In the meantime, enjoy!

never forget

Remember.

Remember.

Remember.

Remember.

Don't call me Nymphadora, Remus. It's Tonks.

Tonks, from the Harry Potter novels, can change her hair color, at will. Voila... 

...a colorway that changes its color at will. This sock is ever so much fun to knit! 


Plain vanilla pattern, as always - with sprinkles...

two villanelles for national Poetry Month

When I was a librarian, I was the one who made certain that the library's poetry section was kept modestly current, and that the collection included enough of the classics to ... well, to keep it from being embarrassing. Did the books circulate a lot? No. Did I care? Not really. 


How many times, after all, have I sat in a library or bookstore and its poetry there, but have not brought it home? Sometimes, you need a dip, not a full immersion. 


Were I still a librarian, I would purchase this book for the library. 

What is a villanelle? Poets.org gives this daunting definition:
The highly structured villanelle is a nineteen-line poem with two repeating rhymes and two refrains. The form is made up of five tercets followed by a quatrain. The first and third lines of the opening tercet are repeated alternately in the last lines of the succeeding stanzas; then in the final stanza, the refrain serves as the poem's two concluding lines. Using capitals for the refrains and lowercase letters for the rhymes, the form could be expressed as: A1 b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 A2.


Yikes. 


But... allow me to share two examples and point you to a third. I assure you: you all have read villanelles without knowing it; their repetitive, almost soothing structure can ease the most stark and necessary conclusion. "Do not go gentle into that good night," says Dylan Thomas, in a villanelle studied by every school child -  "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." 


And now, the poems. 


From Elizabeth Bishop, One Art.

The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. --Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

And, from Theodore Roethke, The Waking.


I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

• Read "Spread it like a roll of nickels" for more information, and a wonderful discussion with one of the editors (and a contributor).

Maisie Dobbs

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Somehow, I managed to read some of the later books before I read the first. This book explains a lot about the characters, especially Maurice and Billy, and how some of Maisie's techniques developed. Two good storylines, excellent writing, and an engaging introduction to a period in English history that may seem less dramatic than actual wartime, but shows the long-term effects on the military, the civilians, and the disparate socio-economic classes.

I listened to the audio in the car, and read the e-book where the audio left off at home. Gotta love technology!


View all my reviews

blue and green, my comfort colors

I thought I'd post a little about the spinning and knitting I've been doing lately. 


Finally, my spinning mojo is back.  I wasn't enjoying the alpaca blends I was working on (although they might entice me some other time), but I'm loving me this Finn from Color Craze Fiber.

.








Blues and greens together are so soothing. This is a cowl I dreamed up, using "Imagination" yarn from Knit Picks in the Frog Prince colorway.

And these are the latest socks, in Zen Yarn Garden's "China Urn" colorway, based on a painting by Pierre Redoute. (I'm proud to tell you that I chose that month's colorway!) As always, the sock pattern was top-down vanilla. The green is subtle, but definitely there, working its magic.

The Night Circus

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Reading this book was like exploring an impossibly-intricate pop-up book that had been cut by the most enchanted scherenschnitte artist who ever lived. The detail, delicacy, endlessly-fascinating characters and scenes and situations -- amazing.

You can read the plot details elsewhere. I'll add one comment: the only film director I would trust with this wonder is Jean-Pierre Jeunet, whose "Micmacs" and "Amelie" are filled with the gentle, magnetic magic this book deserves.


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Brigid Poetry Festival, 2012

To honor the Goddess Brigid, patron of poets, healers, and midwives, I offer the lyrics to a song by Aimee Mann, "Jacob Marley's Chain" -

Well, today a friend told me this sorry tale
As he stood there trembling and turning pale
He said each day's harder to get on the scale
Sort of like Jacob Marley's chain

But it's not like life's such a vale of tears
It's just full of thoughts that act as souvenirs
For those tiny blunders made in yesteryear
That comprise Jacob Marley's chain

Well, I had a little metaphor to state my case
It encompassed the condition of the human race
But to my dismay, it left without a trace
Except for the sound of Jacob Marley's chain

Now there is no story left to tell
So I think I'd rather just go on to hell
Where there's a snowball's chance that the personnel
Might help to carry Jacob Marley's chain

Help to carry Jacob Marley's chain...

It might seem to be a strange choice, but I think it's a wonderful look at circumstance, and the possibility of escaping what might otherwise seem hopeless. In other words, healing.


You can listen to Aimee singing it here.

a month of letters - a challenge

I love letters. I love paper, fountain pens, friends, ink, language, rubber stamps, stickers, and stamps. What's not to love? You get to make so many choices - color, texture, subjects - and you get to share them. Win-win!


Mary Robinette Kowal, puppeteer and author, has created a challenge for February: A Month of Letters. It's easy: each day, send someone a letter, or a card, or a postcard. A real one, with a stamp. Even the post office thinks this is a great idea - check out its blog !


Who can you write to? Make new friends on the forum she has set up, join PostCrossing, send a postcard to a sick child, look up old classmates, re-connect with family and friends, write fan mail to your favorite author... just have fun with it!

• In the month of February, mail at least one item through the post every day it runs. Write a postcard, a letter, send a picture, or a cutting from a newspaper, or a fabric swatch.
• Write back to everyone who writes to you. This can count as one of your mailed items.

You can also join the Facebook page and tweet about the challenge (#LetterMo).

I fell behind in my correspondence last month because of ... stuff ... so if anyone is waiting for a letter from me, check your mailbox.