For generations, the shores of Lake Champlain have been a place where stories are carried.
Through families and seasons. Across the water and along old roads. Through photographs tucked into albums, recipes written in familiar handwriting, conversations around weathered tables, and within the walls of cabins that quietly hold the lives lived inside them.
If you have been part of the Caravan Sonnet community for any length of time, you know that I believe deeply in the importance of those stories. And today, I finally get to share a new chapter of ours.
The Cabin Letters is a monthly snail mail club created from our 1901 fifth-generation family cabin on the shores of Lake Champlain—a tangible invitation to slow down, make space for rest, and notice what matters in a world that is always asking us to move faster.
You can join HERE!
And in so many ways, it feels like something that has been quietly becoming for years.
The Story Behind The Cabin Letters
I didn't simply discover this little corner of Lake Champlain.
I inherited a place already filled with history.
For five generations, my family has returned to this shore. Long before I was born, there were already summers here. Stories here. Traditions here. People who loved this place and cared for it and, eventually, entrusted it to the generations who came after them.
Now I have the extraordinary privilege of living within that legacy. And with that privilege comes something else: the responsibility—and the joy—of carrying its stories forward.
Spending every summer of my life here has taught me that a meaningful life isn't created all at once.
It is built slowly. In the stories we preserve. The places we care for. The beauty we notice. The traditions we carry forward. The people we make room for.
And the small, ordinary choices we make about the kind of life we want to build and what we hope to leave for those who come after us.
The Cabin Letters grew from that idea: that the places we love hold stories worth noticing, preserving, and passing along.
But also from another idea that has become increasingly important to me:
That ordinary life deserves to be dignified. That beauty doesn't have to be extravagant to matter. That rest is not something we have to earn.
And that perhaps one of the most meaningful things we can do in a world constantly asking us to hurry is simply learn to notice again.
What If Your Mailbox Held an Invitation to Live a Little More Beautifully?
That question became part of the heart behind The Cabin Letters.
What if, among the bills, advertisements, notifications, and endless digital noise of modern life, something beautiful arrived simply because someone had taken the time to make it and send it?
Something you could hold.
Something you could read slowly.
Something you could place in a frame, tuck into a book, pin above your desk, collect, or return to months from now.
Something that reminded you to slow down, make space for rest, and notice the beauty in the life you are already living.
And so, we thought we'd write.
What Arrives in The Cabin Letters?
Each month, a new Cabin Letter will leave our fifth-generation cabin on Lake Champlain and make its way to your mailbox. Every month will center around a new theme connected to rest, beauty, place, belonging, legacy, history, home, and the ordinary moments that make up a meaningful life.
Inside each monthly collection, you'll receive:
- A handwritten letter from the cabin, thoughtfully written for the edition you choose
- An original 5×7 fine-art photograph from the Caravan Sonnet photography collection
- An original 5×7 hand-illustrated field map + the story behind it
- A 3×5 “1% More Restful” card, offering one simple and realistic invitation to make a little more room for rest in everyday life, with Scripture on the reverse
- And, from time to time, a thoughtful little extra from the cabin
Everything is created by real hands and hearts. The photography is original. The field maps are hand illustrated. The words are written here.
No AI-generated artwork. No stock collections. No mass-produced monthly assortment.
Just something thoughtfully created to be read, displayed, collected, and treasured.
Four Letters for Four Different Seasons of Life
One of the pieces of The Cabin Letters that means the most to me is that I didn't want every person opening an envelope to receive exactly the same words. Because while beauty can be shared, different seasons of life sometimes need different words. So each month's theme is written in four different letter editions.
→The Becoming Edition is our signature edition, created for anyone wanting to live with greater intention, notice ordinary beauty, make room for rest, and continue becoming who they were created to be.
→The Belonging Edition is written especially for those walking through a season of singleness, with reflections on friendship, home, purpose, community, and the truth that belonging is not something reserved for a future chapter of life.
→The Bravely Edition is written for those navigating chronic illness, pain, a difficult diagnosis, or an ongoing health season—with words centered around meaning, beauty, faith, hope, and living fully in circumstances that can sometimes feel isolating.
→The Beautiful Edition is created especially for those in the later seasons of life, with reflections on memory, legacy, beauty, connection, and the purpose that continues through every season.
The rest of each month's collection is shared—the photograph, field map and story, and 1% More Restful card—so there is still something beautiful about knowing that all across the country, other people are opening the same monthly collection.
But the letter meets you where you are.
You Can Send The Cabin Letters as a Gift
From the beginning, I knew I wanted this to be something you could send to someone you love. Because there is something profoundly different about receiving something tangible in the mail month after month.
Not another text.
Not another notification.
Something chosen for you.
You can give The Cabin Letters as a 3-, 6-, or 12-month prepaid gift membership, choosing the letter edition that best meets your recipient in the season of life they are living.
I especially love the thought of these arriving for a daughter living far from home.
A friend walking through a difficult diagnosis.
Someone navigating singleness.
A mother or grandmother.
Someone in assisted living.
Someone grieving.
Someone celebrating a new chapter.
Or simply someone you love enough to want them to find something beautiful waiting in their mailbox.
Why “1% More Restful”?
I don't believe most of us need another person telling us to completely overhaul our lives.
Sometimes we simply need permission to make one small choice differently.
To sit outside for ten minutes.
To leave the phone in another room.
To notice the light coming through a window.
To make the cup of coffee or tea and actually sit down while we drink it.
To take the long way home.
To preserve a family story.
To call someone whose voice we miss.
To dignify the ordinary instead of rushing through it.
One percent isn't dramatic. That's the point.
Small choices accumulate. Small moments become days. Days become years. And eventually, those seemingly insignificant decisions become the texture of a life.
The 1% More Restful card tucked into every Cabin Letter is a small monthly invitation to practice that.
From Our Cabin to Your Mailbox
Caravan Sonnet began in 2013 as a place for sharing stories. Over the last thirteen years, those stories have carried us through travel and home, beauty and heartbreak, illness and healing, adventures across the world and quiet days beside this lake.
And somehow, more than thirteen years later, it feels incredibly fitting that this next chapter involves putting stories onto paper and sending them out into the world.
One envelope at a time.
The Cabin Letters are officially open.
You can join month-to-month, choose the edition that meets you in the season you're living, or send a 3-, 6-, or 12-month membership to someone you love.
I cannot quite describe what it means to imagine these letters leaving this little cabin and finding their way into homes and mailboxes beyond this shoreline.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for caring about these stories.
And thank you, especially, for believing with me that there is still extraordinary beauty to be found in ordinary things.
From our fifth-generation cabin on Lake Champlain to your mailbox—one letter, one story, one month at a time.
Welcome to The Cabin Letters.
October signups are open for November delivery! Join The Cabin Letters today by clicking HERE!
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