The Sewing Mom

I am trying this year to be more involved with my daughter and her school.  I figure it’s the least I can do since when we relocated in the spring I opted to not go back to working full time outside the home.  When school started in the Fall, I promptly joined the Parent Teacher Association, or PTA. 

I then became the school’s coordinator for Destination Imagination.  This is a job I sort of fell in to.  I volunteered to be a Team Manager for one team.  I met with the principal to get the school to pay for the National Registration and when she said she’d like to have more than one team, I was so desperate that I said, “sure, whatever I can do to help!”, and thus, I became the school coordinator.  I now preside over 2 teams, am team manager of one oversee another team manager for a younger team. 

The PTA took Destination Imagination under it’s wing, although I’m not sure what that means.  The school has paid the hefty National Registration and the Regional Tournament fees for both teams.  I did get the PTA to amend their budget in order to pay a $30 Workshop fee for the teams to attend in January.  I guess we’re doing okay, so far the teams haven’t had to spend any money, although, that will change when they start needing costumes and supplies for sets.  Each team does have a maximum spending limit of $125, that is set by the National Organization.

Anyway, I attended my 3rd PTA meeting this evening.  I actually almost forgot about it.  It was just after dinner and I was sitting down, putting my feet up for the first time today when I realized it was 6:53 p.m. and the meeting started at 7:00.  I grabbed my daughter and we headed out the door.  When we took our seats at the meeting, it was 7:03 and the meeting adjourned at 7:07!  So, do you think we missed anything?  These people don’t mess around!  They start their meetings on time and get right to business.  Lesson learned: don’t be late to a PTA meeting!

Technorati Tags: Parent Teacher Association, PTA, Destination Imagination

Do you have a family member traveling or living in another country?  It’s so hard to not be able to just pick up the telephone and call them whenever you want to.  Well, you can, but it would sure be an awfully expensive phone bill.  It would be even more expensive if you made the call from your cell phone. 

Now, we no longer have landlines in our home, we rely solely on our cell phones. International calling can be extremely expensive and even more so if you’re using a cell phone. There is a fix to this problem, I’m signing up for Mobile Talk by Packet8. It’s a service that utilizes the internet and voiceover IP (VoIP)technology to provide high quality digital International cell phone calls from the U.S. at a low cost. Plus, there are no connection fees. We can save up to 90% on International cell phone calls, I think that will certainly provide me peace of mind the next time I need to reach a family member or anyone else traveling overseas.

I’m so excited about Mobile Talk by Packet 8 that I’m submitting the following video into a contest they’re having. I hope you like the video and will go to the contest page to vote for me!

Technorati Tags: International calling, Packet8, VoIP, Mobile Talk, Packet 8

Have you had to mail any packages for the holidays?  My family lives all over the country so there is always a lot of package mailing going on at any given time of the year.  The frequency increases at the holidays.

Yesterday, I took our stack of Christmas cards to the USPS first thing in the morning to drop them in the drive through mail boxes.  All 4 mailboxes were full to overflowing.  These are those big blue boxes, you know the ones.  So, I decided to swing back around, park and take my stack of cards inside the post office.  The boxes inside were almost as full, but at least I didn’t feel that my cards were going to fall out onto the pavement after I left.

I also had 2 packages to mail but it was only 8 a.m. and the P.O. doesn’t open until 8:30.  Plus, there was all ready a very long line forming waiting for the doors to open.  Now, I have written about the USPS in Allen, TX before and my opinion of them really has not changed, so I took my two packages and drove over to the UPS Store.

The UPS Store conveniently opens at 8 a.m., half an hour earlier than the post office, and there were only 2 customers waiting ahead of me. My total wait time was probably about 5 minutes and my packages were on their merry way. One of those packages they even boxed for me as I didn’t have the correct size box at home.

Today I had one more box to mail, this one full of fabric that belonged to my sister who visited me last week. She wanted to lighten her suitcase load, so she left some things for me to mail home to her. I finally got around to that today. She lives in Eastern Kentucky though and for some reason, it is much cheaper to use the postal service to ship to her than to use UPS, so I decided to brave the postal service (or lack of service).

I did need a shipping label and was unable to find one at the post office (not surprising), but after standing in line for about 10 minutes, I spied a label at the counter. I got out of line, snatched a label and took myself and my box over to the self-check out. I had never used this machine before, but I figured it beat standing in line for another 20 or 30 minutes. Thankfully, a postal employee decided to stand behind me and assist. There were quite a few questions on the screen that I had to answer and some were a bit unclear. In the end though, I was able to print the postage, attach it to the package and pay. The man then took my package to be shipped and I was all done. The next time I use the machine it will go faster because I am now experienced. In the end, this is the only way to go, as long as the machine is in operation!

I would like to add that the USPS employee who did assist me was the nicest man I’ve seen in this particular post office. The other employees I’ve dealt with over the past 8 months since moving here leave little to be desired.

Technorati Tags: USPS, USPS in Allen, TX, UPS Store