It's BOX DAY!

I don't know if this is common in any other subculture, but in the homeschool world, I hear the odd reference to "Box Day" (or sometimes "Unboxing Day"). This would be the exciting day that your school books arrive in the mail.

Ok, maybe it's just exciting for the mamas. (!)

Specifically, I think Sonlight curriculum devotees get into this because you order ALL your schoolbooks for the year and they all come in this HUGE box, which is printed with totally fun graphics so your kid can take the box when it's empty and play with it like it's a stage prop. So sometimes it's bricked all over and looks like a castle. Or palm trees and vines so you are now in the jungle. Pretty fun stuff when you're 7.

It's been a few years since we've had a Sonlight "box day" but I was TOTALLY excited to receive my box the other day--from Amazon!  I had ordered one copy of each of my books so I could see them in real life (and assure myself that they all looked the way they did online) back in the early to mid days of June. I had been initially bummed to get the notification that they wouldn't arrive until at least 4 weeks after I'd ordered. (Man I'm getting spoiled with Amazon Prime...used to getting stuff in 2.5 days or less...).

Then around the time they were supposed to have arrived, I received a notification email that they had JUST shipped and would now be arriving after the start of August. What!?! I sent some emails to customer service and things went from bad to worse as misunderstandings led to my arrival date pushed to the end of August.

It was around this time that I had placed some posts about my books in some Highland Dance resell FB groups, and they were receiving some attention (Yay!). I had two inquiries from abroad, asking about shipping to Australia and Northern Ireland. As far as I knew, the books should have been available pretty much everywhere that had access to Amazon on a computer.  I found out otherwise.
Two calls on two separate afternoons, into customer service availed me of the information that at this time, Amazon can't ship to Australia due to COVID19, and Australia doesn't have their own Amazon printing service to do it within the country.  The only countries that have this are France, Italy, Germany, England, Japan, and of course, Canada and the US. The Amazon in England could also not ship to Northern Ireland due to a combination of COVID19 restrictions, and the Brexit situation (which I was woefully uninformed about...I think the Amazon rep thought I was pretty brainless).

Sometime during these calls, my author copies were mentioned and the rep looked up what could be the problem causing them to take more than two months to arrive.  He didn't really uncover anything however and I got off that phone call with nothing solved.

BUT.....THEN THEY CAME!

I was so excited...and nervous...and excited...and nervous...but they look AWESOME!!  I'm so pleased (and relieved!) but more pleased! While I still hold on to a hope that someday I'll be able to somehow have them printed with hard backs and spiral bound, these KDP versions look fantastic. The exact size I had been imagining. All the printing, borders, graphics, lists, etc, were all clean and clear and perfect. I will have to do a high quality photo show and tell in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, make your orders for any of the five levels of My Highland Dance Notebook RIGHT HERE!