Happy InCoWriMo 2019!!! In case you didn’t know, I’m taking part in a challenge to write a handwritten card each day for the month of February to celebrate the International Correspondence Writing Month.

Oh and also… did you know it’s really difficult to write a blog post about writing snail-mail each day??

I’ve been wracking my brain to figure out how to write an engaging post about writing to other people without divulging addresses or other personal information – nothing comes to mind except to journal what it’s like to do this!

So here goes…

Feb 4 – I started the month a bit behind. Only by four days and it was easy to catch up. Not bad for my second year at this!

Feb 6 – I expanded my list of addresses to include: Alaska, United Kingdom, Slovakia, South Africa, France, New York and Australia. 🙂 incowrimo.org is a great resource! There’s a great freebie below near the comments that helps me to organize each year’s addresses. 

Feb 17 – Oh my word! So many things have colluded to make this the most difficult InCoWriMo ever. It is amazing how the tyranny of the urgent overpowers even my most ardent plans to accomplish things! Live to fight another day, I guess.

Feb 20 – Finally getting to the backlog of 16 cards. Ugh! I’m excited about the list of people I’ve got ready but getting out of this hole will be interesting and a bit hand-crampy. So here goes! 6/16 done… not too bad, all things considered.

It blows my mind how sincere my intentions can be and then life always blasts them apart. But then it only takes one or two days of saying, “Oh maybe tomorrow, I have other things to get done first.” and you end up in a hole at least this big.

Feb 25 – Ok. Getting down to business now. Deadlines always have a way of doing that to me. (life hack here, maybe?!) Anyway… I’m determined to complete this year’s 28 cards in a month challenge!! I’m getting back on track. Also, writing globally means buying special stamps about 1.15 each, but I think it’s worth it!

Yesterday, I discovered our tiny little local post office closes for lunch between 1-2pm every day. Never knew that or had the occasion to know that until then – and when you just want to be done with your errands, you find it highly irritating that postal workers would close to eat. The rational side of your brain doesn’t begrudge them their lunch hour, but please guys, I just need some more stamps!

Stamps acquired and more cards mailed off…. Slovakia, Australia, and Michigan. 🙂

Feb 27 – My penmanship (which as a former teacher wasn’t bad) is strong again. I don’t know about you, but I’ve found that with the amount of typing I do now, I don’t use the same muscles in my hands that holding a pen does. My hand tends to cramp up quickly. This is quite literally very good exercise for me and my hand! I’m noticing a huge difference in the ease and quickness of writing a letter today versus February 4!

Feb 28 – The last day of the challenge. I’m finishing up my list and I will get these cards out today! It’s still February, right?!

Actually done! Finished! 28 cards in 28 days! It’s quite the accomplished feeling to see the cards go out each day (and, ahem…even if you have to do a batch for a few days to finish) it’s very satisfying.

My fingers also feel more nimble. 🙂

I hope you are able to plan and join me for InCoWriMo 2020! This is a great exercise for body and mind. 🙂 Go write someone a note (and MAIL it) today!

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**Here’s the InCoWriMo pdf form I use each year. It really helps to stay organized so you’re not trying to figure out who is next on the list! (It also helps you dig yourself out of the snail-mail hole you happen to find yourself in.) Happy InCoWriMo!!!

Photo by Mikaela Wiedenhoff on Unsplash