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!

I got that "excited/scared" feeling. Like 98% excited, 2% scared.

HI-YAH everyone! Happy Thanksgiving/Black Friday to my American lovelies.

I pulled an unexpected by posting on Monday this week, but there's still time to enter my store giveaway if you haven't already! BIG THANKS to everyone who has already entered, passed along their good wishes, or even purchased something (Rhiannon, I'm looking at you, and yes, you are the best!!). I am so very thankful (HEY! On this post-US Thanksgiving day, I'm thankful for all of you. AWWWWW). I've decided that my store "schtick" is that I'm including a short letter from moi with every purchase. It's like a double mail day. You didn't ask to hear from me but you know what? YOU'RE GETTING IT ANYWAY. Because that's how I roll.

And if you haven't entered, what are you waiting for? Five minutes of your time for the chance to win something free seems like a good idea to me! If this was a lunch room and we were talking about leftover catering from a meeting, there'd be no question: blink and all that would be left would be the carcasses of picked-apart sandwiches and leftover butter. Don't risk being left with room temp butter, enter now! [Please don't mock my crappy analogy. I thought long and hard about it. That's 2.56 seconds of my life I'm not getting back.]

Anyway.....

Here is your regularly scheduled Friday post:

We all love snail mail, but I think we also know how frustrating the mail system can be. I swear, for every two letters I'm sending out, I'm recieving one of them back in my mailbox because Canada Post doesn't know the difference between "TO" and "FROM."

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

I'm no genius, but typically, the "TO" address is, I dunno, on the same side as the stamp?!!! Plus, the words "Please deliver to" above the address is a pretty big indicator of where the letter is going to.

Don't you think being able to know the difference between "To" and "From" should be a requirement for working for the post? Can you imagine if someone working for NASA didn't understand the difference between "Take Off" and "Abort?" Oh, the humanity! How would NASA have then transported deep oil drillers onto an asteroid in order to blow it up?! The answer is simple: they wouldn't be able to. But they did! I can't quite remember what I was talking about when I first started this paragraph, but I do remember this: Bruce Willis saved the world. Oh, the humanity!

Anyone else having frustrating mail days too?

Incoming:

A letter from Sukie. Sukie, it arrived! It circumnavigated the earth first, but it finally arrived!

Sukie's letter also contained this postcard. I'm pretty sure it's my favorite postcard of all time. EXTERMINATE.

More sushi and the squirrel mail from my darling Julie

Christmas mail from Jess, who is imbued with the holiday spirit. People might even say freakishly so, but those people would not be me. No, sir.

Outgoing:

Butterfly beauties going to Melanie in North Brunswick

I Heart Guts for Vanessa in Chicago

Wine sloshiness for Nicole

Mucha for Julie in Grand Rapids

Mail for Elizabeth in Mexico. It's also Elizabeth's birthday today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Mushroom Mail for Mary. It's the MMM of snail mail!

Dotty Dot Dot for Miki!

Band practice with Julie

And last but not least, dog mail for Jennifer!

And that's it! Enjoy your weekend everyone! Wishing you happy mail days ahead. Later gators!

Please Deliver To Giveaway - The Shop of Mystery Edition

This is a very special post at Please Deliver To because I am delighted to announce the launch of my own etsy store titled....wait for it....Please Deliver To! I know, I know, the creativity of my store name astounds me too.

I've made no secret of the fact that I like to make envelopes (need I remind you of the time I was turned into Scissor Claws?), so I thought that I would finally start selling some of these items because sane people shouldn't have to navigate towering envelope piles in order to get to their kitchen. And Dr. Feelgood says that I need to come inching back into the territory of the sane (just a wee bit) lest* I lose my way completely. So TA-DAH! Please Deliver To, the store, was born! 

It's mostly just envelopes, notecards, and some odds and ends right now, but maybe one day, I'll be offering way better product for sale...like say, dragons and unicorns?!! I see the doubt on your face, but we'll see who is laughing when Smaug is in the mail.

ENVELOPE-PALOOZA PART TWO

Also, to celebrate this special occasion, I'm offering a giveaway! All you have to do is visit my shop, use your peepers to browse, and then come back and leave me a comment about your favourite item! That's it! You'll be entered into the giveaway to win that item! Also, don't forget to leave an email address where I can reach you!! If the launch of your own store isn't a reason to abuse exclamation marks, I don't know what is!!!!!!!!

Here are some of my personal favourite items:

Peek-a-boo window envelopes

Dinosaur notecards

Sushi-themed Envelope Pocket Folder

Peacock Envelopes

Father Time Envelopes

Zebra Print Notecards

Want an extra entry? I will provide an extra entry to any wonderful people who help promote this giveaway on their own blogs (not expected, but very much appreciated!). The giveaway closes on Wednesday, November 28.

Now what are you still doing here?! Get viewing, commenting, and/or shopping will you? I haven't been able to get to my kitchen in a few days and it's time to clear some of this stuff outta here. I would love to eat sometime this week. I'm starving marvin!

*I have always wanted to use the word "lest" on my blog. Now I have and life is worth living.

So a Parallax Paradox Walks Into a Parallel Universe...

A fun email from a blog reader—Hello Ginger!—got me thinking about parallel universes this week.

It's fun to think about parallel universes, don't you think? I've mentioned that Fringe is one of my favourite shows and it looves its parallel universes (well, not so much anymore) so parallel universes and my thoughts are like *this.* [I know you can't see it right now, but I'm doing the whole crossed fingers gesture here. Damn internet and its physical limitations!!]

I started thinking about parallel universe Laura (let's call her P.U. Laura for short. Though, I'm not implying that she doesn't bathe. However, on second thought, maybe she doesn't. P.U. Laura could be a stinky mess). I like to think that she's super prim and proper. For example, P.U. Laura:

- loves to bake and finds it relaxing;
- doesn't watch TV. She only reads totally high-brow literature and quotes passages from War and Peace;
- doesn't secretly want to train a regiment of dwarves;  
- never, ever swears (though sometimes, she occasionally utters a "poppycock");
- has no plan for any apocalypse. She's the first person eaten;
- doesn't get weirdly emotional about dinosaurs;
- AND to top it off: she might not bathe.

In other words: P.U. Laura is a pungent BORE.

What do you think your parallel universe self is like?

Incoming:

Polka Dotty Dotness from Katri

Gorgeous postcard from Julie in Grand Rapids

From Julie, one of the world's Smart Women electing to make a difference

A letter from Jona that was misdelivered and written all over, but must have had a homing beacon because it still made its way to me. YAY!

A letter from Jessica, the Abed to my Troy

Outgoing:

Carnival extravaganza for Cheryl

A letter for Kendra

And much love to the greatest niece ever

Hilariously, I read tips for writing a "proper" blog post earlier today. One of the tips was to make the post titles concise and non-abstract, and they should also contain key words that would rank high in search engines.

What's more concise, non-abstract, and SEO friendly than So a Parallax Paradox Walks Into a Parallel Universe???!!!!

C'MON. 

Okay, okay. I totally failed "Proper Blog Writing 101."

Have a great week everyone!

It's better to help people than garden gnomes.

Hello snail mailers!

I recently re-watched Amelie, which is one of my favourite all time movies. It's a positively delightful movie and I'd recommend it if you haven't watched it.

Anyway, I immediately started thinking about how much more fun our lives would be if they were narrated like Amelie's. For example, my voice-over would go something like:

Laura is a former magazine editor who is trying to figure out how to be a proper adult.
She has always been neurotic and slightly twitchy.
Laura Ly doesn't like asymmetrical fries (AKA "demented" fries);
using a dishwasher;
or the words "jeggings," "purse," "lol," or "rofl."
She likes to randomly recite lines from The IT Crowd;
sing the Spiderman theme song in public;
empty out her stationery box,
clean it thoroughly,
and finally, put everything away carefully.

I personally think that it would make meeting new people a hell of a lot more awesome. No more chit-chat, let's just get to the meat of our neuroses!! Then, instead of wasting time on talking about the weather (YAWWWNNNN), we could be talking about why you secretly hate forks (or spatulas or llamas or whatever). Way better.

Plus, if you secretly wanted to take over the world, we could discuss that in earnest. As it stands in a currently-voice-over-less world, it's a little difficult to bring that up in a polite conversation. "Hey, how about those Knicks and-what-is-your-plan-for-world-domination-and do you think they'll make the playoffs?"

What would your voice-over be?

Incoming:

A Fall-themed letter from Jay. Sadly, it looks nothing like leaves and such where I am. Instead, it looks like the Abominable Snowman exploded in my backyard.

By special request, Felicia's letter was recieved by The Hulk. But he wants to make it perfectly clear that he's a superhero, not a model. And while he's posing for photos, the world is at risk. 

Incoming from Jess

Letter #1 from Patty

Letter #2 from Patty

Both of Patty's letters contained cool envelope/folder enclosure neatness! She also taught me a cool trick to use up my excess envelopes, which is something I was grumbling about in a previous post.

Writing inspiration from Mary

Jelly Belly goodness from Miki. All the fun of a sugar rush, without the guilt.

A letter from Bonnie Jeanne

Outgoing:

A weirdly blurry photo of a postcard I sent Julie. To be fair, it's not blurry if you squint. A lot.

Outgoing for Natasha!

And that's it from me. If this were a movie, my narrator would say "Now Laura is going to go cut and fold some paper and then cut and fold some more. Laura clearly needs to get out more."

I hope everyone has a wonderful week.

Candy moderation? No thanks.

Hello lovelies! I hope everyone had a great Halloween!

My favourite thing about Halloween is the day after. That's when all the candy goes on sale for 50% off. I can't resist the mega sale, even if that means I'm eating these ridiculously small candies until August next year.

And they really are such annoyingly small candies, aren't they? You have to eat like 8-12 of them in order to get a proper sugar buzz.

I mean, the companies must have intended for you to eat them 12 packages at a time, because why else would they make them so flipping small?!!  

MY CANDY LOGIC IS FLAWLESS. 

Incoming:

Halloween themed mail from Jennifer

A letter from Erika in Italy

The postcard album cover for the new band that Julie and I started. Look for us (Sushi and the Squirrel) in music stores everywhere soon!

An awesome Halloween card from Kestrel

Outgoing:

Postcard surprises for Julie

Outgoing for Sarah

Have you ever considered wearing a costume on a day other than Halloween? As Mary noted to me earlier this week, nobody would expect it! Plus, there's an above average chance that no one is wearing the same outfit as you. And we all know how awkward that can be! Save yourself the embarrassment: wear your costume on the other 364 days of the year! You'll be the centre of attention—guaranteed!

Have a great week everyone.