Two of the summers that I was in college, I worked at a summer camp. Now this was a fantastic camp (Kanakuk in Missouri) and they have several camps throughout the United States. The Kanakuk camp where I worked was for 12-18 year olds. Campers stayed for a month and were divided into cabins. The youngest cabin was "Diaper Deal"; the oldest cabin was "Super deal". Everything in Kamp had a nickname and there was certainly a chant or song for any and every activity, object, person, utterance, etc.

I loved being a counselor at camp. The constant spazzing out, the yelling and singing, the devotional times with your campers- I really enjoyed that environment. The kids seemed to thrive, too. There were very clear rules and discipline for breaking those. You knew the boundaries and you knew the consequences. Also, everyone had jobs in their cabin. You competed to "outserve" each other- and it worked! You did TONS of physical activity. They didnt' allow any magazines, t.v.s, dvds, gameboys, any of the outside stuff and I liked that. Teenage girls need a month without comparing themselves to pencil thin models in a magazine.

But the reason I brought up camp was because of mail! My mom just wrote a blog about writing letters. That was big at camp. Every afternoon, you had an hour for "rest time" and that's what we did! It was during the hottest part of the day, so we went to our cabins and wrote letters, notes, etc. You could write to your counselor friends at other camps or send "goodies" to people. An example of a "goody" would be a beachball, inflated, with a note to a friend written on it. Goodies were the bomb.

Anywhoos, all to say, that one of my New Year's resolutions was to correspond more by snail mail. Yes, it's becoming more of a pretty penny investment to do so, but who doesn't LOVE getting snail mail? You know, you open the mailbox- bill, junk mail, pizza coupons, bill, junk, magazine, envelope addressed to former occupants of the house, A LETTER! That's why on Blue's Clues they had their own special song for "Maaaail Tiiiime". Not that I ever watched Blue's Clues.......