It's lonely in my house tonight. A nice kind of lonely. The lonely where the air watches attentively, to see what you'll get done. The sort of way an adult watches a child playing with toys.
In the past I've had great company:

But alas, my family is away and so tonight I lick stamps on my own.
I'm a bit behind on postcard sending so I'll have to work double time.
To make things easier for me to find, I sorted my stacks of postcards- shout out to Vanptrint- in order.

The one with the lawyer doing a thumbs up is #14, which I'm sending tonight. The smallest stack to the left is number 50-52, behind it is the 40's, then the 30's, then the 20's and then what's left of the teens.
Seeing the photos up close again brought back the hard work and exhilaration I put into taking them. Approaching people is terrifying! It's so easy to forget a struggle once it's over.

Plus, I got some pretty nice pictures, and the quotes on the back are sweet. They've got the potential to make people pause and think.

Seeing the hours and memories stacked out like that made me even more determined to see something become of my work. On Monday the 14th I'm going to start calling the offices in BC to see if they've received their postcards. After that, it's back to the House of Commons.
Wish me luck.

Another day, another friend to help lick some stamps with me,

Because of the curls on my head I kind of look like I'm from Whoville which is fitting because as you can tell by the tree, it's Christmas time. Today I mailed the Holiday themed postcard:

Since I'm sending this postcard to local offices, this is also the first postcard that has required stamps. Due to a generous donor, I have approximately 1000 stamps to use. They're all colorful, unique, and a few decades old. Because of this, I've had to learn fun facts like Canada used to have stamps worth different price points, as opposed to local and international stamps. Stamps are confusing; there's a lot to learn about stamps. One FUN fact is that old stamps require a whole lot of licking. Thus, I assembled a squadron of 2 siblings and one friend to help me along my journey.

After all the licking, pasting, and double checking was done, I dropped them off at the nearest Canada Post™ in the local drug store. The man behind the counter said under his breath that sending a postcard cost $1.00, (we only had 95¢ stamps) but said we should send them anyways. Hopefully, we don't get them returned. I'll be sure to cover 1 dollar next time.

Anyways, that's me; you're you. Enjoy the weather, whatever it is, and I'll see you next week!

Hello world! Today I'm lucky enough to have had dinner with my dear friend Sarah and her cousin Julie, in the presence of homemade beeswax candles.  Afterwards I labeled the postcards, also in the presence of homemade beeswax candles.

I've still gotten no response, so I'm going to contact the secretaries of the different offices in January to confirm the postcards were received.

Till then, I mail and pray.
Have a happy holiday season!

Today has been an exceptionally beautiful day. I love the rain, it's like all of nature is taking a breath.

Unfortunately, rain can also provide a hazard for materials made out wood pulp, say postcards. While I pulled those to be sent out of my rain jacket, a large chunk of them fell into a puddle at my feet. Luckily they're well made. Shout out to VanPrint. There was only a bit of wetness around the edges and one tiny dog ear, so hopefully, they'll be alright and make the journey to Ottawa.

I enjoyed the rest of the walk with the dogs. Down by the water, I spotted a large log either washed ashore or displaced from a snug spot on the sand. I couldn't tell. Then, looking up, I saw an abandoned herons nest waving round in tree branches being swept by the wind. On the dock, I saw a blackbird swooping high at a treetop. I love how the clouds intermingle with the mountains. God bless Vancouver, God has blessed Vancouver.

A successful day. I hope you enjoyed yours!

Recently I came across this fine body of text here:

This sparked a solar panel in my heart and I typed up a rebuttal. I sent it to my friend who liked my brief response so I thought: "What the heck? I'll put it on my blog."

To be honest, I think the article is fear mongering. China is polluting a lot, but so is Canada. In fact, Canada along with China and Russia are on track to lead to a world over 5 degrees of warming. Yowza.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/16/climate-change-champions-still-pursuing-devastating-policies-new-study-reveals

And the idea that our contribution won't make a difference till China does something is utter baloney. It's called setting an example and doing our part. A world where Canada is aiming for a zero carbon future while the rest of the world watches, will undoubtedly be a lot better than a world where we're waiting around for China to set an example for Canada to follow.

Let's be real here.

And also when thinking about making the country"uncompetitive." "competitive" is going to look very different in the future. Competitive is going to be a country with renewable energy and fresh drinking water. We shouldn't get sucked down by economic fears, even wall street stands on the earth.

So I sent out my press release, and the North Shore News picked it up! Woopie!
Is that how you spell woopie? Woopy? Woo-pie? Anyways here it is in all its glory:

It's awesome. Thank you so much to the reporter Jeremy Shepard and photographer Cindy Goodman. Thank you to all the people that have reached out because of it, some of them even offering stamps. Bless.

It's a cloudy day outside my window. It's my favorite weather to get outdoors. I think the temperate rainforests suit the clouds. It's like the whole forest is still and fermenting, waiting for the sun to stretch its arms again. The ferns, moss and babbling river are content to snuggle up and let time pass. It provides the perfect opportunity to lay my thoughts to rest. 

Yesterday I readdressed a new batch of postcards to go to the house of commons and clearly labeled everyone except good ol' J.T "M.P." On my way to work, I dropped them off in a friendly neighborhood Canada Post mailbox. Hopefully, they didn't get too damp in the rain.

Today I'm planning on researching how to do a press release for the project and am going to mail the rest of the dudes that have come back from the postal party all dressed in yellow.

That's all from me for now- I hope you have an excellent day! Be kind to yourself.

-Emily

   I just got off the phone is a couple different customer service representatives and can I just say- is there anything worse than phone customer service? Unlikely. I feel silly, I'm pretty sure I sound silly, and I can practically hear the customer service agents complaining about the whole experience later over water in wee little paper cups.

Anyways, I digress. I did the math and found out I can send 28 of the 52 postcards to the House of Commons for free, but for the remaining 24, I'm on the hook for a hefty amount of postage dues.

24 postcards x 42 recipients*=1008 postcards.
*I can still mail Justin Trudeau's to the House of Commons
Which is  how I ended up staring at this on my screen:

Yeah, sorry Canada Post, I'm not looking to do something simple like find a postal code or ship a flyer. I'm searching for 1000 freakin' stamps.

Here's the break down:
1008 postcards x 0.85 a stamp = $850

Oof.

Well- I know what I'm asking all my relatives for this Christmas.

-Emily

Yesterday I went to my local Canada Post office to see about a problem that’s been plaguing my mailbox: The postcards have been returning with them is a big yellow sticker that says “Return to sender. Postage Due.”
What the dickens?!
From my understanding, it’s every Canadians right to write their friendly neighborhood MP postage free, but apparently here in Canada-land, there are some kinks in the system, not even a Zamboni can gloss over.

As the gentleman at Canada post explained, it’s free to write your MP at the House of Commons in Ottawa, but if you want to give any politician a holler at their constituency office back home in BC, you’ve got to pay up and slap a stamp on the sucker.

So my current task revolves around analyzing this wee .jpg here:

This pixel powered treasure trove tells me when politicians are at the House of Commons (green) and when they’re back home in BC (white). The image above is for the year of 2019. Since this project is a year-round affair, I want to send the postcards consistently wherever the M.Ps are. This means I might have to dole out the dough and purchase some postage.
If anyone has a huge stamp collection they want to get rid of, let me know!

Finally, a word of advice to all fellow M.P writers: To avoid undue returns, make sure to write your address with “M.P” on it clearly. Apparently, all Canada Post workers don’t have all M.P’s memorized by name. My bad.

-Emily