agirlnamedfriday

Covid-19 Problems

I figured I would put this out there in case any mail is sent back to me or if partners of mine have the same thing happen, since the whole world is dealing with this, I'm sure it's not just Canada.

A few months ago, I had gotten a bunch of postcards back for a few weeks in a row, that were headed to some different countries with a notice stuck to each of them saying they were returned to sender due to certain countries not accepting international mail and/or postal service being suspended, some from as far back as the end of February. Thankfully the notice said that I could re-post without paying for postage again once the suspension is over, but who knows when that will be.

I'm in Canada, and this is the link for the updates on which countries Canadians can and cannot post to currently (Under International, latest update from January 7th).

Thankfully, I've only had one partner on here (that I'm aware of) who has been affected by international postal service suspensions to specific countries and we've been communicating regularly. Every time I check, a new country has lifted service suspensions and I send out any of the mail returned to me that needs to be sent to those countries.. but unfortunately the list of countries with international service suspensions is longer than the list of countries without international service suspensions.

If you receive something back that you had sent to me, please don't worry, I will not rate you down for it, please do let me know if this happens. We will figure something out, even if it's scanning it or taking a picture of it and emailing it to me for the time being and a promise to re-post once the virus is under control.

Well wishes to all of you and your loved ones. Stay safe.. we need each other's moral support more than ever right now.

Sending love to all of you ♥

Me

I'm an introvert and I love all kinds of time to myself, especially alone time with cats around :)

I am an ally to any and every disadvantaged, marginalized, oppressed peoples and groups from all over the world. Please consider me a safe person to speak to and private messages with me to be safe spaces.

Love for all ♥

Freedoms

Be as YOU as you want to be, as creative as you'll allow yourself to be. I don't want to hinder anyone's creativity, so I don't have many guidelines on what should or should not be sent to me, but there are some minor things.. the most important is that you put effort into your swap and own the hell out of it so I have something beautiful to show off and love.

If you're in a swap with me where you're sending a postcard, feel free to pick the size, medium, handmade, store-bought, in or out of an envelope.. whatever you wish (assuming the swap doesn't have restrictions against it), same thing applies to greeting cards, I especially like the ones that you can seal and write the address on the back of it, completely ignoring the need for an envelope.

Guidelines

Please don't send me things that involve religion, hyper-politics (I don't mind some, as I am a social justice warrior myself and a very free-thinker and believe that all people and animals are equal, despite what the world's most powerful people attempt to make us believe. We all deserve equality, equity, fairness, love and support and no one deserves to go without or be left behind, regardless of where they came from, their class, race, sex, gender, ability/disability, education, their name or their class), anything promoting hatred, hate-speech, prejudice, discrimination, anything demeaning or derogatory.

For recipes, please avoid sending me anything that requires meat to be a main focus, if meat can be left out or replaced, that's fine. However, carmine (and any of it's other forms of a different name: cochineal, cochineal extract, crimson lake or carmine lake, natural red 4, C.I. 75470, E120 or carminic acid) and gelatin/gelatine should also be avoided as I have allergies to not only meat but some pretty severe ones to carmine and gelatin/gelatine.

I am a vegetarian, but I eat vegan close to 100% of the time, as I am finding out that I'm reacting to eggs and dairy. I also have issues with soy and gluten, but recipes that include those things are fine as alternatives are easy to find. This is a great link for ingredients to steer clear of for vegetarians and vegans.

While I am not a Christian, I used to have tied with Judaism, and when sending me certain things, I can appreciate the architecture of ancient religious temples, but only from an architecture standpoint - if that is the goal, feel free to send along.

Please don't send me anything involving Game of Thrones.

Requests

If you are sending me any kind of mail swap, please consider putting stamps on it instead of the "postage paid" labels that the post office prints out. I love seeing my swaps arrive with stamps all over them, much more visually appealing and collectible. If stamps aren't possible, it's not a big deal, it's only a preference and won't change how I rate you.

I love crafting and creating and while I am a beginner at some things, I'm seasoned at others. I have a lot of interests and I'm sure that's shown in the things I create and send out.

For some reason, I am extremely nervous about this whole pocket letter thing and I've had one in the works for some time now. I've seen such elaborate ones and I feel like one I make probably wouldn't compare, but I'll take the plunge at some point and send it to someone, I'm sure! Hopefully they'll like it.

I love postcards. I don't care what they're made from, what they're in, what is stuck to them just yesterday, I received one that had a coin stuck to it with a sticker sealed over it, I was so thrilled and dumbfounded that I hadn't thought to do this myself, haha).. I don't want to limit anyone's creativity, I just ask that I not be sent religious things or anything I've listed that I wouldn't like to receive elsewhere on my profile.

The Fun of Deadlines and Postmarks

I will sometimes do my swaps at home or at work, especially during my overnight shifts since I have some down time, and I can often send my flat-mail from work because there is a mail box right outside of the main entrance of the site I am at most often and when at home, there is a mailbox at the end of the road and many post offices between where I work and where I live, so I have many opportunities to mail my swaps well before the deadlines, and I'm not anticipating anything throwing a wrench into my life and causing me to send something late, but if that time ever comes, I will definitely communicate that to my partners.

For swaps with tight/short deadlines or for swaps that take lots of time, effort and detail, however, I may finish and ship before the deadline or the date of the deadline, so please keep this in mind as the postmark may not reflect when I put the swap into the mailbox or handed it over to the post office depending on their pickup time for the day, which also applies for deadlines that fall on Fridays, weekends and statutory holidays, because if post after the daily pickup time on the date of the deadline, the swap will not be travelling until the next business day, which could be a day after or a whole weekend and even a long weekend after I posted it, that is why I take digital pictures whenever I send my swaps out; the pictures I take have a permanent time-stamp and date-stamp which is accessible through the properties menu of the image file and are pictures of the swap itself, the packaging with visible addresses and my username and the swap name, any receipts from sending larger packages, myself depositing the swap into a mailbox and the mailbox itself, just in case. I will also send a message to you if I send something on the deadline date.

My Swaps to You

I’ve never had this happen and I hope that it never does, but I’m seeing it happen a lot on here lately that upon receiving swaps there is sometimes postage owed. Should I ever have to send anything larger than a letter, I go to a post office to have it measured and weighted (and convince them to put stamps on it rather than a boring postage-paid sticker.. it doesn’t always work) and I always fill out a customs form (if you’re international for me) for swaps marked as GIFT, as that is exactly what I am sending to you and I mark the value as low. If for some reason you ever receive a swap from me that has postage owing, please contact me, show me what I you had to pay and I will gladly reimburse you for whatever you paid. Here is hoping that I never run into that problem

I want my swap partners to be happy and I will not flake, I enjoy putting effort into something that someone else is going to receive and I get just as excited while I'm waiting to hear if my swap arrived to you because I hope you will like it as much as I loved making/creating/writing it.

If you don't receive your swap from me within 4-8 weeks (depending on which part of the globe you're on), please reach out to me and I will definitely arrange to resend. I take pride in the swaps I do and I know how disappointing it can be to be waiting and waiting and nothing comes, that feeling sucks, especially when you've put in so much effort for the swap you did for your partner. You deserve to receive something just as much as any other hard-working swapper does. My goal is to keep my score at a 5 and keep my partners happy.

Your Swaps to Me

As I said before, be as creative as you want, assuming the swap you're involved with me doesn't have restrictions.

If you find you have a hard time picking things from my profile for certain swaps, feel free to message me and we can work something out. Sometimes the things I like aren't always available or they're expensive where you live or if having to order them online (if it's your only option) and shipping would take too long and put you over the deadline or even too expensive, I get that. If you reach out to me, I'm sure that there are other things you can send to me that I can easily re-gift for other swaps or people in my life.

If you need extra time for whatever reason like hard-to-find profile/swap items, life getting in the way, emergencies, illness, etc, please message me to let me know that you'll be sending your swap out a little late so I can expect that. I will not rate you down for sending a swap late under circumstances like that as there are things beyond our control and things happen when they happen - we are not as in control of our lives as we would like to believe. As long as I receive a swap from you and you clearly put effort into it, I will not rate you down.

If we arrange for you to do a resend to me because I didn't receive something after an expected period of time (depending on how far away you live from me), I will not rate you down. If it turns out that you sent me a re-send as arranged and I receive it and I end up receiving your initial package, I will absolutely let you know and I will send you a package to make up for receiving both (this happened to me for one of the first swaps I did years ago. I received a resend less than two weeks after it was sent and then two months later I received the first one and the postmark showed it was sent before the deadline of the swap, so I sent her a package to make up for both arriving to me).

If your swap deserves a 5, then it deserves a 5, even if it's late/resent and we've been in contact about it. I hate giving out 3s and 1s, so I don't unless absolutely necessary.

The Postal Unpredictability

Keep in mind that postal services can be horrible, Canada Post especially. Some postcards that I've sent to Russia have taken 3 months to arrive.

(Hints to Use for Surprise Profile Swaps)

• Hockey cards
• Baseball cards
• Montreal Expos memorabilia (including game tickets)
• New York Islanders memorabilia (including game tickets)
• Cat things
• Cat toys
• Friendship books (I have none of these at the moment)
• Tea (individually wrapped, loose, or bags wrapped in handmade sleeves.. doesn't matter to me!)
• Coffee
• Bento boxes and accessories
• Miniature and Regular-Sized Tea Sets
• Coins
• Stamps (used or mint, international or domestic)
• Tea tins/canisters
• Tea infusers
• Corks from various alcohol bottles
• Foods and drinks that are not available where I live
• Arts, crafts and planner/journaling supplies
• Stationery and other letter writing accessories
• Custom items that say my name: Victoria, nickname: Vicky or TGIF or Vic and my last name since I'm often called by that more than my first name considering my job and it's something that men seem to like to do and I'm around them constantly (you'll have to ask for my last name if you're not a swap partner)
• Custom items that say my niece's name: Calleigh
• Custom items that say my nephew's name: Austyn
• Custom items that say my siter's name: Katarina (not Katrina.. it's a mistake that happens often, but there is an extra A in there)
• Rubber and acrylic stamps
• Unique attachments that I can put on my duty belt for work.. even better if they're something custom made that doesn't exist or cannot be found or bought
• Postcards of any kind, any shape
• Swap-bot information cards or stickers
• Postcrossing and/or Postcard United information stickers
• Bookcrossing supplies (especially custom)
• Firefighter themed things. My boyfriend’s badge number is 3404

(Hints to Use for Surprise Profile Swaps)

• Anything religious (including angels or cherubs.. unless the angels or cherubs are related to Valentine's Day)
• Anything promoting political extremism, hate speech, intolerance, prejudice and discrimination of any kind
• Recipes involving meat where the meat cannot be replaced (including carmine and gelatin - both of which I'm allergic to), gluten, highly-processed foods and soy

Where I can, I reuse many materials like envelopes, wrapping paper, bags and anything else that is suitable to reuse for packaged swaps but I don’t reuse items that are overly worn or damaged.

I don’t mind if my partners do the same by reusing materials, I’m sure the planet would love you for it too. :)

I've been asked where I buy my stationery and I get it from La Papierre! If you decide to subscribe, mention my full name (if you PM me, I will tell you), Victoria F aka agirlnamedfriday or Victoria F in Elgin, Ontario, or even Victoria F - agirlnamedfriday@gmail.com, you and I will both receive free stationery :D

• Postcrossing
• My Postcrossing Page
• Postcard United
• My Postcard United Page
• Intpostage
• My Intpostage Page
• Postfun - Apple
• Postfun - Android
• Bookcrossing
• My Bookcrossing Page
• Geocaching
• My Geocaching Page
• Pokemon Go
• My Pokemon Go Trainer Code - 3359 1598 5567