Hello Australia!

I Had my first international sale to Australia!  I was very excited about his because my husband lived there for 2 years before we were married.  He loves Vegemite, kangaroos, and Lamington's.

I was excited to send this bride-to-be these doilies that had been crocheted for another bride 37 years ago!  I wrote a little bit about them in this post: Only Time Will Tell.

I also sent her this collection of candy dishes for her wedding.

And just for fun, here is my husband a couple of years ago when we scoured the Internet to find an authentic recipe for Lamington's.  We made them for Australia Day (hey, it was January in Minnesota- we love celebrating things during our Deep Freeze, the Big Chill, the Dead of Winter- whatever you want to call it).

Weighing In

I have a confession.  I don't own a bathroom scale.  In almost 19 years of marriage, we have never owned a scale.

But when I saw this baby at a garage sale, it was love at first sight.  It's a baby scale!

I know that is strange considering I don't own a scale.

I might not like to weigh myself, but I do have need to weigh other things.

I don't have any babies to care for anymore.  Unless you count this "baby".  

Rediculous, I know.  But we do tuck her in each night and cradle her as we carry her to bed.  The weird thing is she lets us!

Back to the topic, I have been known to take my cake stands to the post office just to have them weighed to try to figure out what I should charge for shipping.  In I go, handing the cake stand over to the nice people who work behind the counter, and we make up far away zipcodes predicting what it might cost to  send it to tim-buc-too, or San Francisco, or Miami (notice I always pick somewhere nice and warm).

I had 2 different people in Canada interested in this:

Sadly, once you add the packaging, all of my cake stands weigh over 5 pounds, so that puts international shipping to $45.  Most people don't want to pay that much.

Someone in the UK wanted this:

Again, I ran to the post office and tried all sorts of boxes and options.  We couldn't get it to cost any less than $45.  It was a no-go for the woman in the UK, and I don't blame her!

So, when I saw this old-fashioned baby scale, I thought my local postmaster might appreciate me buying it, so he doesn't have to weigh my candle sticks and cake stands anymore.

And for the real test today, I first weighed this cake stand I sent to Maryland (Hi, Maryland, if you read this!)

It was just over 3 pounds.

Then I boxed it up with bubble wrap and egg shells.

It came to 5 pounds and 4 oz.

I went to the handy dandy USPS website and was able to configure what the postage should cost.

I calculated  $11.17.

Now for the real test- I took it into the post office, and I was pleased as punch-- it came to exactly $11.17!!!!

This baby is accurate!  Yay for 70-year old accurate scales!  Yay for the saying "they don't make 'em like they used to!"  And Yay for those baby boomer parents who wanted to weigh there babies at home.

Now I just wonder why we don't do that anymore?