With the help of our great customers, we managed to raise over $2,400 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association last month.  To remind everyone of our situation, we recently discovered our son has Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy.  My husband, Jerry, participated in the MDA's Lock Up program in order to raise money.  Ephemerala donated 50% of all sales for three weeks, and offered Gift Certificates to everyone who made his or her own donation.  I am pleased with our collective success, and we managed to send four children to MDA summer camp this year!

 

     In the last newsletter, I mentioned the United States Postal Service rate hike, and figured that we would be able to keep our old shipping charges.  Wow, how wrong was I?  I hadn't studied the new rate schedule until it came time to mail a package.  Not only did they raise the rates for weight (which is expected), but they also now take package thickness into consideration.  Any flat package that is more than 3/4" thick is considered a parcel rather than a flat, and is subjected to a much higher rate.  Some of these fees don't make much sense.  One day, I shipped a small bubble mailer with a single marble in it, and a larger bubble mailer with lots of bags of beads in it.  Despite being larger AND heavier, the big package of beads cost LESS to ship than the marble did, because the marble's thickness put it into the "parcel" category!  I am thinking of investing in the larger sized bubble mailers, because spreading several bags of beads thinly out over a larger mailer costs less to ship than cramming them into a smaller mailer!

     At any rate, we've regrettably had to raise our base shipping fee from one dollar to two dollars, to accommodate the new USPS rates.  Our add-on costs (the amount added on per item) stays the same.

 

    In the past, I have complained about the abundance of spam messages that appeared on our Guest Book (which eventually forced me to remove the Guest Book entirely).  Now the spammers have found a different way to sell their weight loss pills and male enhancement programs.  When my son Cedric was born last year, I set up a page of pictures, to show my friends and family as well as Ephemerala browsers.  I set the page up using the Guest Book format so that well-wishers could leave a little message if they wished.  Well, the spammers found that page, and are now leaving their disgusting messages all over it.  This practice has always distressed me, and now that they are doing it on a newborn baby's photo page just blows my mind.  There seems to be no escape from these jerks.  Take a look for yourself:

 

For those who like the "Home Front" pictures, here are a few from our two recent vacations.  (No Guest Book function on this page!)  Now you can see what we were doing instead of listing new products.