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Happy 2025, Dear Reader!

I wanted to share a little about what I’ve been doing penpal-wise. It’s a hobby that brings me great joy and I am excited to get back to it, and be a part of bringing good into the world.

I was thinking about it the other day, and wanted to share what I wrote on my Postcrossing bio with you here. I think there’s cause for hope, even in dark times, and I hope my words bring  you some small measure of it:

As 2025 begins, I am filled with hope and concern. Hope, because many people with whom I talk see the same challenges I do and are committed to making the world a better place. Concern because World War III is still going in Ukraine and the risk of it spreading terrifies me. My heart breaks for the people affected. My own country is engaged in a battle for the hearts and minds of our people against the forces of fascism, a fight both of my grandfathers fought in World War II more than eight-five years ago. I am glad they aren’t alive to see what we have done to ourselves and yet, I wish they were here to guide me and to tell me it will be okay. Each generation has to fight for democracy, and this is our fight. I pray that we are up to the challenge.
 

This I know: community is what will get us through this, as will mindfulness and creativity. Community is what reminds us we have more in common than not, and that we can come together in common respect and admiration when we remember the person on the “other side” is a person just like us, with a family and community for whom they care deeply. We have more collective power than we think we do. May we remember our power and exercise it for the good of all, and remind the greedy and the power-hungry that the world is not theirs for the taking. Slava Ukraini.
 

My husband and I live on a small homestead outside the town of Duvall, WA, in the Pacific Northwest. We are a couple hours south of the Canadian border. My day job is in the insurance industry and by night, I write novels. I joined Postcrossing because it’s important to me to put good out into the world. In a time of great uncertainty and global unrest, not to mention environmental cataclysm, putting good into the world, however small, means something.
 

I am an avid textile artist and love to weave, knit, and make things. Our puppy Freya is now four and her brother Loki is three. Two of our cats, Boria and Nadya, died within a couple weeks of each other at the end of 2023, just as I got a total left knee replacement and my job blew up. 2024 presented many opportunities for growth. I have a new job now, thank the powers, and two kittens joined us in January of 2024: Yulia and Yelena. Our oldest cat, Kolya, is going strong.
 

In May, our first granddaughter Julia was born. We don’t see her as often as we’d like, they live in Florida, 5,000 kilometres (about 3,000 miles) from us. She’s teething now and keeps my son on his toes. She is, of course, the most beautiful baby anywhere in the world. (Don’t all grandparents say that?)
 

If you’re not sure what to write, try:

• What is a typical day like in your life?
• What is your favorite thing to do?
• If I were a tourist in your town, what would you recommend I see first?
• What do you want to be when you grow up?
• What do you do to relax and unwind?
• What does “nesting” mean to you, in terms of one’s home?
• What’s the worst advice you were ever given?

Are you part of Postcrossing? If not, check them out. It’s a lot of fun to connect with people from all over the world, and to know that there are real people out there with lives and mailboxes.

• I joined in June of 2020, right at the height of the pandemic, because I was really struggling with depression and isolation. 19 postcards sent, 12 received.
• 2021: 64 sent, 70 received.
• 2022: 22 sent, 23 received.
• 2023: 67 sent, 60 received.
• 2024: 28 sent, 35 received.
• 2025: 6 sent, 5 received; however, I have 13 out “traveling” as we speak so this will change as the year goes on.

Write on!