Friday, December 28, 2012

Santa does what?

Hello Snail Mailers! I hope Santa was extra kind to all of you and brought lots of mail and presents.

I've always found the concept of Santa rather creepy. Before you start Bah Humbug-ing me, hear me out and note the evidence:

1) He sees you when you're sleeping. Binoculars, perhaps?
2) He knows when you're awake. Dude, stop bugging my house.
3) He climbs down your chimney in the middle of the night. Aren't there anti-stalking laws against that sort of thing?
4) He eats your cookies and drinks your milk while you're sleeping. R-U-D-E!

I rest my case*. I'm just saying that if Santa wasn't a jolly fat man in a red suit, you'd be calling the cops on him.

*Note: this post was strategically timed for after Christmas because if Santa was going to bring me awesome presents, I wasn't going to accuse him of being a stalker before he's dropped them off. He may be creepy, but you don't mess with presents people! Timing is everything, my friends.

Incoming:


Mr. Thornton from the wonderful Sarah. Sarah is doing an awesome 365 Mail Art challenge. I may be totally biased here, but I think I'm the recipient of the BEST piece of mail art EVER. It's mine, all mine! *maniacal laugh*

Gift tags from Vanessa in Chicago

New Years Wishes from Julie! Julie and I are working on a soon-to-be-announced project together, so I have a feeling that 2013 is going to be a very interesting year for both of us!

A really cool letter booklet from Sarah in MD. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't going to shamelessly steal the letter booklet idea, because I am. I totally am.

A letter from Cheryl who is giving me important lessons on how to pretend I'm Scottish. BOOYAH.

The latest in a saga that I lovingly refer to as "Laura and Jess make up new swear words."

Outgoing:


Outgoing for Veronik in Montreal

Flowers and sun for Jennifer

MARY MAIL!

Oh, and before I leave you for the week: Ms. Kendra of Lady Kayy asked me to mention her Deep Letters Correspondence Project, which helps match penpals that suffer from emotional or psychiatric issues. If you are looking for someone to exchange deep letters with, I suggest you check it out!

And that's it from me! HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone, I hope you have a wonderful week.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Hulk Smash-mas!

In lieu of presents this year, my best friend and I decided to celebrate the holidays by painting pottery! "Painting pottery" probably doesn't conjure up images of Ming Dynasty vases (whaddaya mean it doesn't?!), but in my opinion, what I painted was 100X more geek awesome. May I introduce... THE HULK!!!





While I'm sure superhero etiquette doesn't include storing yummy candies in the heads of superheroes and using their heads as lids, Hulk is just going to have to get good and used to it.

I mistakenly painted his lips red because I didn't realize The Hulk is ALL green, so my Hulk has the unfortunate bonus of looking a bit like a cross-dresser. So let's try this again: may I introduce... Ms. Hulktina, the alter ego of The Hulk!! Oh hush, Batman! Do we have to discuss the unfortunate rubber nipples on your suit?! And don't even get me started on you, Superman. Those in spandex houses shouldn't throw stones.

Incoming:



Holiday happiness from the lovely Patty

A holiday surprise from Natasha! She sent me the cutest little letter set. I am total putty for mini versions of things.

Christmas card from Felicia

A surprise letter from a penpal that I haven't heard from since March

From Jolly Jay in BC

Christmas mail and the most awesomesauce Squirrel labels from Julie

The above envelope also contained the weirdest thing I've recieved in the mail to date. Observe:
WHITE HAIR! In the mail! Julie is lucky that I'm not a mad scientist who has the gumption to clone her using her hair. Let's see here: A neutron walks into a bar...hip bone is connected to the whatever bone...adamantium is number imaginary on the periodic table...yup, it's been verified—I've got the mad thing down, but the scientist thing is a bit more elusive. Oh, you dodged a bullet there Julie.

This envelope from Lisa in Denmark contained a FIFTY-EIGHT PAGE LETTER. 58 PAGES! I had to read it in installments, which made it seem like there were cliffhanger endings. That was fun.

Outgoing:



BAM! POW! OOOOF! For Natasha.

Dots for Nora

Scallops for Anna


Anyways, both I and Ms. Hulktina wish you all a very Happy Holidays! Have a great holiday week everyone!

Friday, December 14, 2012

A conversation with me, myself, and I.

Hello fellow penpallers! How is everyone today?..... Oh yeah? Tell me more..... WOW! That's amazing! What did you do?.... YOWZA! That's so exciting! Okay, I apologize but I have to interrupt you there because I have to move on with the blog post show. Let's catch up more later, okay?

Did you see what we did there? WE JUST HAD A CONVERSATION. WHOA. In the immortal words of Bill and Ted: that was bodacious.

However, I've just come to the realization that I am totally my mother's daughter. Mostly because my mom regularly has conversations with my voice mail. Observe:

"Laura? This is your mom. How are you? [short pause] I am fine. Do you miss me? [longer pause] I miss you too. Bye bye!" 

I'm always confused as to whether I should call her back because technically she just had a conversation with some facsimile of me. And frankly, my voicemail covers most of the pertinent details of a valid conversation—it's a hyper advanced voicemail that way. This is how robots take over the world: they start with voicemail.

So....what do you want to talk about now?

Incoming:


Lots of awesome incoming Holiday mail this week! I'm totally Grinch-y around this time of year, so all this Christmas mail makes my heart grow three sizes.

A surprise package of goodies from Cheryl, my favourite person in all of Scotland

A card from Lisa, my pal in Denmark

The cutest card from Mary

Rudolph and Santa walk into a bar....it's a letter from Jennifer!!

More Mail from Mary (no Magic Mushrooms though). I absolutely love the robot sticker at the top.

Santa in a card from Miki

Outgoing:


Snail mail (literally!) for Jessica

Up, up, up and away to Sukie!

Some immaculately dressed penguins for Nicole

And that's it from me! Have a great week snail mailers!

Hello, you've reached the message mail of Laura's blog. I'm not here right now, so please leave me a message after the beep. BEEEEEEEEEPPPPPP!!!!

Friday, December 7, 2012

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Penpal

This blog has been in existence for a while and I feel like we're practically old friends by now, so I'll let you in on a little secret: I'm taking mandarin lessons. Yup, yup, I'm trying to learn a new language.

Of course, "learning" a new language implies that I'm actually learning something. When in actuality, it's just me staring blankly at the teacher and drooling on myself in confusion. To add insult to injury, my niece and nephew are in Mandarin immersion and are picking up the language faster than Superman can fly. They like to regularly correct my pronunciation and tell me how wrong I am. Have you ever been schooled by children? IT. DOES. WONDERS. FOR YOUR. SELF. ESTEEM.

I've spent the last week watching a lot of awesome Chinese martial arts movies to see if my mandarin lessons have been paying off. Turns out that Chinese actors like to do this completely ridiculous thing where they talk at a normal speed. It's absurd. I mean, if these actors thought about anybody other than themselves, they would know to speak really slowly (like one word every 20 seconds) and enunciate. REALLY ENUNCIATE. Course, it would make movies like 16 hours long, but it's only the polite, right thing to do.

Seriously though, I LOVE Chinese movies, especially martial arts ones. These actors defy gravity (who needs Elphaba?!) and contort their bodies in ways that make my body hurt just thinking about it. They're amazing! I often think about becoming as awesomely limber and fit as them. Then I realize it would interfere with my very strict regimen of eating unhealthy foods and being lazy so I just go back to my candy. EH.

Anybody else learning a new language too? Got any tips for me?

Incoming:


Incoming from Nora

Mail from the new married Natasha!
A letter from Santa...I mean Veronik.

Mail from Vanessa for Armitage Place!

Elves hard at work from Nicole

A postcard from Marissa

A week without mail from my Sushi is no week at all!!

Outgoing:


Since it's the first week of December, I decided to use all my Holiday/Winter themed envelopes while it was still appropriate. Course, I could have sent them out in the middle of July just to be randomly trippy (and that certainly seems like something I would do), but I figure that people should be appropriate at least once a year. So this is my time.

Blitzen, Donner, Rudolph, and um, er... Steve? I dunno, it's a lot of names and they're hard to remember so... the aforementioned reindeer plus a bunch of other ones are coming for Katri!

Snowy trees for Jay

Cold Hands, Warm Heart for Jona

Oh, and one quick shop announcement: I only have one pack each of the Skeleton Keys and Sheet Music envelopes left so if you were eyeing them, be sure to pick them up before someone else does! I don't know when they'll be in stock again.

And that's it from me, have a happy week everyone!

Friday, November 30, 2012

Birthdays are nature’s way of telling us to eat more cake.

Hello snail mailers!

Without further adieu, the winner of my shop giveaway was:


PAMELA! A pack of peacock envelopes are on their way to her now, and a big thanks to everyone who entered. HIGH FIVES ALL AROUND.

It is my niece's 11th birthday this weekend. Holy moly! It feels like it was only last year that I was doing a really crappy job of changing her diapers. Now she's an awesomesauce little girl who criticizes my knock knock jokes and writes me stern notes if I don't reply within two weeks. Huh, not at all precocious...! In honour of my most favourite little girl in the world, I thought I'd share the letter writing kit I made for her birthday:

"Oooohhh, ahhhhh," says Laura....

The kit contains (in theory) everything a person would need to write a kick ass letter




I hope she loves it! I certainly loved making it. It's a great way to encourage people to snail mail, so why not make your own letter writing kit to give someone for Christmas?

Incoming:


Beautiful umbrellas from Anna
Not a velociraptor-iffic week for incoming mail. Soon I'll be writing bitter Friday posts, crying about the glory days when I actually got things in the mail (while tears drip into the keyboard...). People, I've seen the future and it's not pretty. Save me from myself! Dun dun. Doh.

Outgoing:


Outgoing for Jessica

These guys are holding out for a hero like Felicia

Skylines and cityscapes for Patty
And that's it from me! Have a happy, happy week everyone!