After stuffing over 150 newsletters into envelopes this evening, I decided to write a Newsletter Edition of gratitudes tonight:
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Microsoft Publisher. “Start with two columns. You want to add a picture? Click this button, move it here, resize it, drag it over here. Want to change articles? Drag the old one to the side of the screen for possible later use, then copy and paste the new one in its place.” Every other month, create the same basic template and start all over again. Suck it, printing press!
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Mom’s industrial-sized double-sided color copier. Prints out lots of copies a minute on 11×17 paper so we can do all of the printing and production at home. Suck it, Kinkos!
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Mom’s paper folder. There was a time where we made two folds by hand: two sheets of 11×17 paper in half to make an eight-page 8.5×11 newsletter, then fold it in half again (originally into thirds) for stuffing into envelopes. If that first fold wasn’t exact, you could end up with some really crinkled paper. You say there’s a machine that’ll make a perfect first fold for us? Suck it, folding paper by hand! Well, I guess we still have to make the second fold ourselves… dang it!
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Self-sealing envelopes. Sure, you could lick over 150 envelopes every other month, but these envelopes have a sticky strip so you can just press the flap down to seal it. Suck it, dry tongues with paper cuts on them!
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Our little white plastic basket. Instead of just throwing the envelopes into a gigantic, disorganized pile, we can stack them nicely in this basket, then easily flip through them to make sure we printed the right number and all the envelopes have stamps. Suck it… eh, I think I’m out of things to be hostile towards. I’m just really grateful we have so many tools to make producing and mailing these newsletters faster and easier every year.
