Great Day!!!

Well, there it is - a picture of my half of the table at today's Elk's Lodge Bazaar! :-) That what I stayed up till 1:30 a.m. working on & preparing for. :-) By the way - I'm extremely exhausted and completely out of it, so please exuse the less-than-stellar writing today. :-/

The day started bright & early at 6:00 when the alarm went off. I arrived at the Elk's Lodge shortly after 7:00. The Greater Grayson Chamber of Commerce had graciously offered to share their table with me so I could collect holiday cards for Operation: Love From Home. They arrived shortly after I did, and we got all set up & ready for the day. All in all, it was a very good day. The Bazaar lasted from 8 to 3 and there were many wonderful displays and beautiful crafts! I was very good - I only bought two things. One was a box of handmade soaps with essential oils, etc. in them for one of my girl soldiers who loves that kind of thing (hopefully, she has no clue I have a blog and hopefully will never read the above sentence, haha!). I'll put that in her Christmas box. ;) The other thing I bought were some Christmas cards. I was starting to run low and the cards werevery beautiful andvery inexpensive, so I bought two packs (which equals 20 cards). :-)

Anyway, the grand total of Christmas cards collected for the troops as a result of the Bazaar was 31. :) It wasn't as busy as I'd hoped it would be, but I left with 31 more signed cards than I showed up with, so I was very happy. Plus I met some awesome people, and hubby and I were invited to join Elks. :-) Way cool.

After the Bazaar came to an end, I dropped off collection boxes and flyers and blank Christmas cards at The Verizon Wireless store in Loganville, and also at the CoffeeHouse in Loganville. Both have agreed to serve as collection drop-off points for Operation: Love From Home. Thanx, y'all!!!! The Greater Grayson Chamber of Commerce has been absolutely FABULOUS. They are a shining example of an organization that works hard for the good of the community. The Grayson Chamber is officially sponsoring and promoting Operation: Love From Home at their various events. They are going to get more local businesses involved, as well. YAY for them, and ten million thanks!!!! This is going to be the BEST card drive ever - I'm extremely excited about it!

After that, I went to the post office to check my p.o. box. As it turns out, I had cards waiting for me! Many thanks to my loyal reader and dear friend "chtrbx" for sending in 5 AWESOME cards!!!!!! You rock, chtrbx!!!!!! :-)

Then, I came home and found a very, very special surprise waiting for me in the mail here at home. I'll write about that in a separate post here shortly. (Edit: post is up. Have a tissue handy! )

Anyway, the grand total for today's official kickoff of Operation: Love From Home is 36 fabulous cards. Thanks everyone!!!! Keep it up!!!! Our heroes need us!!!!! :-)

PICTURES OF THE EVENT CAN BE SEEN BY CLICKING HERE!

Kat