The 52 Letters Project

The Astronomical Cost of Mail

Sending a domestic letter costs $.46.

Sending an letter internationally costs $1.10.

Sending an envelope with any weight and heft will set you back at least a few bucks.

And now our current foreign exchange student is packing up and trying to find an economical way to send his stuff back home to Denmark. To say we’ve found no truly affordable options is an understatement. Taking extra bags on an airplane is not only expensive but it’s a logistical nightmare as well. If we can get everything out of this country for less than $200, it will be a miracle, and I think using the U.S. Postal Service is the only way that’s going to happen. Early price estimates from UPS and FedEx hovered around $500 or more. Read more…

Author name:: JoAnna
Publish date:: May 15th, 2013
Discussion:: No Comments
Categories:: News

A Great Big Pile of Pretty Scraps

050913 Scraps 300x225 A Great Big Pile of Pretty Scraps I’ve given up any hope of catching up on my magazine reading. At this point, I am a year and a half behind on my reading material, and my magazines overfill a basket that is threatening to break on the sides from all the pressure. I’ve recently decided that I can’t do it all and I can’t catch up, so instead, I’m choosing to move forward without trying to drag the past behind me. I’m never going to be able to read all those magazines or all of the blog posts in my feed, and I’m not going to be able to watch all of those television shows that I’d like to watch. If I don’t read the magazine the month it arrives in my mailbox or start watching a TV show when the pilot airs, I’m choosing to say ‘no’ at this point.

It’s a bittersweet realization. Clearly I thought I was Superwoman given the backlogged life I’ve collected over the past several years, but it is time to let go of that false notion.

To help mourn the passing of my magazines out to the recycling bin, I’m actually taking a few minutes to flip through each one to cut out words and images that speak to me and may be worthy of a card collage or handmade envelope someday. Read more…

Author name:: JoAnna
Publish date:: May 9th, 2013
Discussion:: No Comments
Categories:: News

What’s Makes a Relationship?

I had a very interesting conversation with my seatmate on a flight from Las Vegas to Los Angeles the other morning. He’s written a few books on dating, and he wants to write a book about the art of creating meaningful friendships and relationships. He talked at length about what goes into developing and fostering a legitimate friendship, and I asked him what he thought about the fact that social media gives people the opportunity to remain surface-level acquaintances. Those people who I barely spoke to in high school and my closest friends both write “happy birthday” on my Facebook wall. How can you possibly differentiate between the different levels of friendship when everything is one big smear of birthday wishes? He responded to my question by saying that maybe those people who I don’t consider my closest friends never wished me happy birthday before because they didn’t know it was my birthday. Now that they can easily learn more about me—from my personal Facebook summary and my status updates—they actually know me better than they ever did before.

Though I spend a lot of time in the social media sphere, I tend to be a bit of a skeptic. How can casual relationships consisting of status updates and “likes” truly result in a legitimate friendship? But when my seatmate mentioned that social media could be a way to get to know someone better, I began to question whether I actually give these sites the benefit of the doubt when it comes to appreciating their benefits. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram … what’s next? How many more of these social media sites can I tuck under my belt before I lose complete touch with reality? Read more…

Author name:: JoAnna
Publish date:: May 6th, 2013
Discussion:: No Comments
Categories:: News

Send Happiness

I received an email from a colleague the other day that was sent to a myriad of people about a mutual friend of ours. This friend has had a very difficult year. She’s suffered from some debilitating medical issues and was personally affected by the shooting in Newtown. To say she starts every morning with a positive attitude and finishes it feeling more depressed than the day before may not be an understatement.

My colleague told everyone who received the email that she wanted to stuff our mutual friend’s mailbox with love, happiness and good thoughts. She asked us each to write a letter or postcard or mail something fun. Of course I jumped on board! Read more…

Author name:: JoAnna
Publish date:: April 24th, 2013
Discussion:: 2 Comments
Categories:: News

Why People Hate the Post Office

I don’t make it out to my post office nearly as often as I should, but there are a handful of times each year when I avoid it with all my might.

The first is the holiday season, when people are weighted down by boxes and cranky children. During the holiday season, there never seems to be enough room in the post office because for every person, there are four or five boxes crowded around their feet. The days are dwindling when people stand in line with a stack of holiday cards that need to be mailed, but they are still making use of the mail services to deliver boxes.

The second time of the year when the post office makes me crazy are the days leading up to April 15, aka Tax Day. Even with the advent of e-filing and the fact that people have so much time to prepare their taxes, they still wait until the last minute to mail their forms in (and I can hardly blame them). The customers in the post office during tax time are not happy people. The winter holidays sometimes stress people out, but at least there’s something fun about the holidays too. Not so with April 15. Read more…

Author name:: JoAnna
Publish date:: April 17th, 2013
Discussion:: 2 Comments
Categories:: News

A Snail Mail Saga

In my pen pal days of middle and early high school, my pen friends and I would challenge each other to write one page more than we did in our last letter. This sounded easy at first, but these letters soon turned into epic novels spanning a dozen, twenty and more pages. This is a tough challenge when you’re pen pals with the same people for many, many years.

Writing these letters became an adventure of sorts as I recounted every detail of every day, trying to fill pages. There was no need to keep a detailed journal; the girls I wrote to became my confidants as I worked through social problems, talked about teachers and provided information about extracurricular activities. If I didn’t have enough to write on any particular day, I’d write what came to me, then pick up again the next day or the day after that, dating each “entry” as I went along. With the change in dates and news came a change in handwriting, pen choice and mood. I remember liking the challenge of writing these letters. I liked sharing my life with my pen pals, and I enjoyed getting long, similar accounts from them on a regular basis too. Read more…

Author name:: JoAnna
Publish date:: April 10th, 2013
Discussion:: 2 Comments
Categories:: News

The Postcard Package

040313 Postcard package 300x225 The Postcard Package As much as I love the concept of the Forever stamp, and as much as I appreciate the fact that there is a consistent rate for sending mail overseas now, there is one thing I hate: The cost of sending something—anything—to a foreign country. A letter that meets the very maximum standard requirements to use a global Forever stamp costs the same as a three-line postcard. Quite frankly, it’s a racket. Just as there are different rates for mailing a postcard versus a letter within the United States, I believe there should be different rates for mailing a postcard versus a letter to a destination outside the United States.

I frequently exchange letters with our first foreign exchange student, who lives in Slovakia. When I travel, I like to pick up postcards to send her way, but sending a postcard from every destination I visit would become cost prohibitive very fast, especially on trips where I visit more than one interesting place. On a road trip late last summer, I created the idea of a postcard package, which is a fun and much cheaper way to share my experiences with her. Every day (or at every interesting stop), I pick up a postcard, which I date and then write a short note about the site or what I did during the day. At the conclusion of my trip, I have several dated postcards already written, which I then send in a single envelope, often with a full-fledged letter. I always get this envelope weighed because it often weighs a little bit more than what a global Forever stamp covers, but it is so much more affordable than sending each postcard individually. Plus, our girl gets an eclectic collection of fun stuff in a single mail delivery. Read more…

Author name:: JoAnna
Publish date:: April 4th, 2013
Discussion:: 14 Comments
Categories:: News

Snail Mail Thoughts from Ireland

I just returned from a whirlwind trip to Ireland for St. Patrick’s Day. What a trip! I imagine being in Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day is like being in New Orleans for Mardi Gras or Rio for Carnaval. In any case, it was a weekend packed with lots of energy, lots of festivities and lots of Guinness.

Despite the fast pace of my trip, I managed to fit in a little bit of snail mail love. I sent a few postcards while I was overseas, which is sort of silly seeing as how I arrived in Dublin Friday morning, Sunday and Monday were both holidays, and I was back home by Monday night. Any postcards I sent likely won’t arrive in U.S. mailboxes until later this week, but that’s okay.

I also bought a couple of postcards for myself, which I’m planning on taping into my journal. I fell hard for a few things I discovered in Dublin, namely the doors and the awesome library at Trinity College. If given the chance to go back, you can be sure I’ll give more attention to both the books and colorful doorways!

032013 Postcards Snail Mail Thoughts from Ireland Read more…

Author name:: JoAnna
Publish date:: March 21st, 2013
Discussion:: 9 Comments
Categories:: News

The Relationship Between Reading and Writing

At the turn of the new year, someone asked me how she could become a better writer. Were there any online resources that could make her a better writer? What tips did I have to offer this would-be wordsmith?

At the turn of the new year, this same person posted on Facebook that, in 2013, she was setting the goal to read four books. Four. Books. Not per month. Not even per quarter. Four book over the course of the year.

I understand that not everyone likes to read. It’s not easy for everyone, and it takes time and effort that some people don’t think they have available. Nonetheless, I believe that one of the keys to becoming a better writer is to read. A lot. Everything. All the time. I don’t think I read nearly enough—my goal this year is to read 30 books and I also read dozens of magazines and long form pieces over the course of any given month—but to read only four books in a year? I was not only surprised but saddened to hear that someone who wants to make her living as a writer reads so infrequently. Read more…

Author name:: JoAnna
Publish date:: March 6th, 2013
Discussion:: 10 Comments
Categories:: News