More Thank You Letters

I’m plugging along with writing thank you and gratitude letters this month. I’ve made it a priority to write to one person a day. Some days I’ve written to a few because as I’m getting the stationery out I sometimes think of someone else. It’s a wonderful “problem” to have.  Some letters have ended up thinking of you type cards, but whatever the sentiment it’s the connecting to the recipient that means the most to me. 

One letter I wrote was to thank two high school girls in Indiana for their generous spirit that I hope becomes a nationwide or worldwide club that is in all high school. How selfless are these teens to first think of this creative idea secondly to take the time to not only write the letters, but to spend time with the patients. I wish much success to Handwritten Hearts.

I wrote to the girls’ high school and again hope they receive the letter to know their news reached me in Southern California. I know there are many different types of organizations out there doing the same thing-one letter at a time. If you know of one, please share in the comments. I’ll have to write another blog post on my favorites, but for now, here are some other people I wrote to last week:

 

*A man I’ve known in our community ran for city council. He didn’t win, but I wrote him to thank him for running and having the courage to get in the arena!

*A friend from high school who isn’t on Facebook (I think there are only six, ha!) but that I wanted to wish a Happy Thanksgiving and thank her for her years of friendship.

*A thank you card to friends who hosted an early Thanksgiving meal. Everyone brought a dish to share and the place setting cards were even handwritten.   Above is a photo of card holder in her kitchen-love it!  I was beaming when I saw this as I know why I associate myself with these friends–because we all still write thank you notes!

*A thank you to my esthetician who does a great job waxing my eyebrows.  I didn’t write her for the service she provides, but for her dedication to losing weight.  We had a nice discussion on discipline and how you have to start small, but keep with it.  I was so inspired by not only how great she looked, but that she didn’t diet or do anything extreme. She started exercising and is committed to making it a part of her daily life.  I’m a big exercise, fitness girl, so I had to write her to say, “Way to go!”

*My French Bulldog’s vet received a thank you this week because when we went for a visit last week they gave us a free bag of turkey and cranberry treats.  Here is a photo of Nitro wanting more after I shoved some in his bone.

Thanksgiving is Thursday. May you not only count your blessings but perhaps take the time to write to someone this week to let them know how thankful you are for them.

Day 5 of November’s 30 day Gratitude Letters

Thumbing through November’s O, The Oprah Magazine and look what I found, yes, if you are a doer vs. a thinker and want to take your gratitude level to the next level then this is what they suggested:

“Write letters to people you’ve never probably thanked, going into detail about all the ways they’ve made your life better. Deliver the letters by hand if you can or mail them (email a last resort). If the recipients are no longer alive or you don’t know how to reach them, don’t worry: simply writing the notes will deepen our practice and remind you that gratitude is about appreciating others rather than focusing on ourselves.”

I was pretty much sold with a smile on my face after, “Write letters…”

Day 5: today’s letter was written to Natalie Juteau. She’s a blogger from Colorado State University. She wrote this article, X’s and O’s: The power of the written word X’s and O’s: The power of the written wordand of course it resonated with me so I used my new Thank You notes made by Karin Gable to write to her. Natalie is an English major and wants to be an author. I wish her the best with endeavor. I told her she could read from my blog and lack of perfect sentence structure and grammar that I clearly was not an English major, but none the less, I will hit send on blog posts to share my love of letter writing with you that also enjoy this form of communication. I didn’t have a physical address for her so just wrote to the university’s newspaper address and hope she does receive it, but if not, maybe she’ll just stumble across this blog post.

Every day I’m thinking about more and more people, businesses and organizations I can and will be writing to in the days to come. Stay tuned!

Updating the Address Book

It’s always strange to me how I decide to clean out things on the first of a month.  I’ve been needing to do this for years, but yesterday I updated my old school address book.  I have an online one too, but there is just something about flipping through the pages reading names of my closest family members and friends who I correspond on a regular basis.  It pained me to take this picture as it did have my 83 year old Aunt Ruby’s name and address there, but she passed away last year.  I knew if I erased hers there would be others. The act of physically erasing the names was a sad one for me.  I ended up erasing four names of friends and family members who have left this world in the last few years.  I still keep a post-it note inside for my friend who has four children where she lost her battle with cancer in 2011.  I want to stay in touch with her children, so even though their mom’s address is erased, they are not.  The post it note has their ages and birth days on it.

I don’t remember when I finally switched over to using a pencil instead of a pen.  What a concept to have an address book with crossed out names to names with current addresses in pencil that is much cleaner, but I suppose that’s all up to one’s preference. I do recall when I finally threw the old one out.  It  was like an old friend.  Of course the new one wasn’t like the old one and took time to get used to not seeing all the crossed out pen entries.

Do you have an address book online or physical one?   Open it up and write to someone this week!

 

 

 

November: A letter a day

Last year on Facebook I remember scrolling through reading what friends were thankful for. Not discounting their health or family members, sunsets and pets, but I thought about being thankful to behind the scenes people, businesses I patronize and individuals I really don’t know but appreciate that we may interact with whether it be one time or someone I’ve have known for years.
I decided to write a thank you note to them.

Below is a partial list from last year. Some days I wrote more than one and others where as situations came up where I couldn’t wait to get home to write one.

I don’t think I’ll post who I write to daily, but when I do, I’ll share the reason behind why I’m taking the time to write the individual or organization.

As I’ve been typing this I’ve thought of a few more. The list really is endless. I have much gratitude for others!

So, here we go:

Day 1: And, as it should be #1., My mother. We had lunch yesterday. We texted after and relayed how much we enjoyed our time together, but she’s still going to read it, in writing next week.

2. Last night we went to a football game. There was a man there who has been volunteering his time with the team for years. He’s a local businessman with a family, but I’m going to write him and thank him for his unimaginable hours he’s dedicated to our community.

3. A friend on Facebook who I really admire and respect isn’t on there much, (love her more for that reason alone) but when she does post something it is so thought provoking and usually a link to an article I enjoy or learn from. I’ll write to her and thank her for that.

So there you have a sampling of what I’ll be sending. Anytime, just like in my last post when you write, don’t stress over the exact wording. These won’t be lengthly letters. I don’t know how they’ll be received-doesn’t matter. To unplug for a bit, take time to send thankful sentiments to others is what matters to me.

There are lots of books out there on this topic, but John Kralik’s, 365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Lifeis a great short read and sure to inspire you to reach out to others in the form of a hand written letter.

I hope you’ll be encouraged to write a few this month as we head towards Thanksgiving. I’ll look forward to comments of who you write to!

Thankful for much …