If you like to write letters and you also like to take pictures you have probably already discovered the fun of putting these two activities together, but just in case you haven’t, I’d like to share a few thoughts and pictures on this subject with you.

I have found that a delightful synergy exists when two or more favorite activities are put together into one, creating what I like to call a ‘Super Activity’.  I discovered this ‘Super Activity’ principle quite by accident years ago when I was enjoying one of my Country Inn Days.

What is a Country Inn Day?  It is a play day, a day when I give myself permission to escape from every day life.  On these days I enjoy adventures, dream dreams, host teas and dinner parties, and use my imagination to play.  I also like to share these Inn Days with pen friends by describing my fun in letters a few days later. Why bother sharing Country Inn Days?  It’s because sharing doubles the joy.  It really does!

So on that Country Inn Day long ago, as I was playing the part of Innkeeper/Host, preparing an afternoon tea for guests at my 1853 home, my Inn of Imagination,  I was thinking of one particular far-away friend who could not attend.  How I wanted to share the event with her, but how?  Well, at times like this it always helps to find my creative thinking cap, put it on, and with its help solutions do appear. In this case, I realized my friend could enjoy tea with me in spirit if not in body if I simply took pictures all along the way and relived the tea experience with her later via letter.

So that’s exactly what I did.  I took pictures of the food preparation, the food presentation, the room setting, the guests – all the details of afternoon tea that day, and in sharing the pictures and descriptions later, I not only enjoyed the actual tea, but I was able to relive the experience all over again with my letter friend.

And because I have digital pictures of my tea,  I not only can relive the experience with one friend, I can share the event over and over and over with lots of friends – old and new. I don’t know about you, but if I’ve done a lot of work creating something, I like to hold on to that creation. With photography my creations stay with me in a very real way forever and  ever, and I, like any artist, perhaps like you, appreciate this fact.

So ever since that Country Inn Day long ago I send postcards and letters out regularly and I make this correspondence especially personal and descriptive by including photographs.  This sharing has become one of my daily rituals and though you may think sending a post card out each day isn’t much, I assure you it is. First of all, it lets my friends know I’m thinking of them and secondly, the picture on the post card will communicate much, for you know what they say – a picture is worth a thousand words.

Be it a Country Inn Day with a tea party, an outing, a holiday, or any ordinary day spent around the house and garden, taking pictures will preserve the moment and allow us to share that moment with others.

Here’s  sharing a few pictorial moments with you.

Robert Louis Stevenson once said, “The world is so full of a number of things I think we should all be as happy as kings.”  Well, I agree, don’t you? Sharing these wonderful things by capturing them in photographs and wisking them off to friends in the form of post cards or letters can become a most wonderful thing in itself—

For as we focus our attention, and then our camera, on the good things that are all around us, we better appreciate the great gift of life we are all given. Then, by sharing this joy and appreciation with friends through pictures in post cards and letters, we not only double our own joy, but we awaken our friends to the wonders and beauty around them too. We all get so busy.  We forget to stop, smell the roses, and focus on the good around us.

So get a camera, take some pictures and share.

It’s fun!

It’s A Super Activity!

Try it

You’ll see