• Overview
• Letters & Post Cards
• Phone Cards &Calling
• Email
• Sharing Photos on the Web
• CD's & Tapes
• Other ways to Communicate

Letters are the Number One request that I have from my husband, with Photos of the kids, the dogs, me, his cars and trucks (he's a mechanic) running a close second. They're cheap, easy, and something tangible from home.

Letters & Post Cards

• How much paper can you put in a letter? About 6 sheets of binder paper. Less if the paper is thick, more if you are using airmail sheets.
• Keep them upbeat and supportive Of course you want your contractor to come home! But they've chosen to go there and do their thing, and you agreed to support them. Let them know you need them and love them, but share the sob stories with your journal, your mother, your pastor, some other contractor wives or someone else. There's nothing your contractor can do about it, and they may already feel guilty for "abandoning you" to begin with. As I was recently reminded, they need to be able to concentrate on their job and perform it in a safe way - they don't need to be distracted by our distress. (Remember, these are just my opinions.)
• How long will it take to get there? It depends. The post office will tell you 10 days to 2 weeks. If your contractor is in a large camp with fairly regular mail delivery, then you may be lucky and have them arrive in about a week like my husbands do. One of his letters took nearly a month, though.
• Should I keep copies? I am an admitted pack rat. I scan nearly all his outgoing and incomming correspondence and back them up on to CDs. I'm hoping that when we are older and grayer and back together way down into the future, that we will be able to look back at this remarkable love story.
• What should I include?Just a few things I include. (Mine's a mechanic who loves his truck, so I once wrote a several page letter about it's trip to the car wash where they hand washed and hand waxed it - and included a photo of it...)
  • Description of a typical day of yours
  • Anything funny that happened to you
  • Photos
  • Drawings, notes from the kids
  • Plans for the future
  • Anything to do with his kids
• Post Cards You can get blank, pre-stamped post cards from the post office. You can print out pictures on them from your computer or have the kids draw on them or put stickers on them. You can keep a few in your car, purse or brief case and jot down a quick "Thinking of You" note.
• Make it easy If you're like me, you're suddenly swamped with things you weren't responsible for before, so making letter writing easier is a good thing.
  • I print out sheets of address labels and use them for Custom's Forms, envelopes, packages, and post cards. I donate to a charity that sends me return address labels, or I would print sheets of those, also.
  • Bought a CD organizer that had slots in it and keep my stationary, envelopes, stamps, sticker and etc in it
  • Have a mini-correspondence kit in my computer bag, one in my truck and one in my purse
  • Buy stamps by the roll, but also cute stamps by the sheet and pre-stamp envelopes when possible