For the good of all Fairy Tales...

Last week, Princess gave me an assignment (a topic to write about in my blog). Then she awarded me with a cute graphic to put on my blog. I stole another person's assignment and gifted myself the graphic that went with that one as well. This week, Princess gave me an A+ with a BONUS for completing the assignments and then...told me to do another one!

Well, I being the freaky homework lover that I am, am jumping on the idea of someone else telling me what to write on my blog because (as we all know) it's hard to come up with posts every single day and this NaBloPoMo thing is a lot harder than it seemed to begin with!

So, without further ado, today's assignment.


On Thursday, I told you all about the amazing idea I had for helping my Girl Scouts to send care packages to soldiers in Iraq. How far have we gotten with that idea? Not far but we are taking steps.

Miss Quiet and I picked up 10 of our 13 Girl Scouts on Thursday and met the other 3 at the Post Office. The local PostMaster took us on a tour of the whole facility and answered all of our questions. We all learned a lot, like...

• Did you know that an APO address is for Air Force and Army personnel stationed overseas? How about that FPO addresses are for the Marines and Navy?
• Did you know that the United States Postal Service will get the letters, packages and post cards to the destination but then it is in the hands of the military to get it to its actual recipient and is no longer a USPS matter?
• Did you know that a customs form must accompany any and all overseas mail and it must contain a list of what is in the package or envelope?
• Did you know that you can get Priority Mail boxes at your local post office for free and some of them will ship for a flate rate (depending on which box you choose) no matter how much it weighs?
• Did you know that if you ship to an APO or FPO address that you can get a $2.00 discount if you use a Large Flat Rate Priority Box?

The girls all got a souvenir of four First Day of Issues Disney Stamps on an envelope and we also picked up 5 Priority Boxes to pack full of stuff for our Soldier Friends. We are ready for the next step. On Tuesday, November 25th (our next meeting), the girls will bring all of their homemade and purchased contributions and we will fill the boxes and stuff them with homemade paper snowflakes. I can't wait. :)

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Other items of note on this same topic...

Teensy got to see her Grandma's sorting station at the post office (she is a rural route carrier here in our town) and also got to show her friends her picture that was stuck to the desk. They were impressed.

My friend, Josie (the one in Iraq) called me this morning! But...I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth and didn't know my cell phone rang so I missed the call. Argh! She left me a message and said that she would try to call me back tomorrow, so I will be attached to my phone no matter what is going on!

My boss has decided to get her granddaughters together and send a few care packages to Iraq as well. She thought it would be a good project for them. I whole-heartedly agree. Now I just need to get names and addresses for all these soldiers!