So Many Thank You's to Send Out...

This is a post that I meant to do last Friday... Thursday was one of the best mail days that I ever had! That day in the mail, I recieved 2 manilla envelopes, 1 priority mail envelope and a small box... and not one bill in the bunch!! In the two manilla envelopes were books, one an old Suzanne Brockman, Kiss and Tell, I bought on-line and from Janet, I received another great JD Robb. She knows that I love this series and am far behind in it... I seriously think the woman is doing all that she can to see that I get to read the entire series. :) The box came all the way from merry old England from a wonderful lady that I am exchanging books with... I find some old American ones on her wish list... and she sends me some for K2 (who apparently has a great fondness for British authors). The box from Annie contained the Doomspell trilogy in one bound book, the World Book Day, Vampirates, and another she sent as an extra, The Code of Romulus. This exchange has been such a gift!! K2 gets copies of books that aren't published here in the States (as is the case with the 2nd and 3rd books of the Doomspell Trilogy) or aren't scheduled to be published here for months yet. Also... her friends think it's pretty cool that she has this connection to getting these books from England. How fun for her!

Then there was the last envelope. A week earlier, I had an email from Andrea asking me for my address, she had something to send me. I gladly gave it to her thinking that it was a Lisa Kleypas book... she is a big fan and I just discovered her. Well, the envelope definitely had a book in it but not exactly what I was thinking... this is what I found...






Andrea is a fellow scrapper and had made journals. She knew that I am a scrapper and decided to send one to me. While it is true that I am a scrapper, I haven't strayed far from the traditional scrapbooking path...meaning pages for scrapbooks. I had yet to try creating a journal so I was so ecstatic to receive this one! It is so beautiful and so extremely well done (J's comment... she EVEN covered the pen?!?!) I had been wanting to do this with my Brownies and was actually going to do it last week but in the end chickened out... now Andrea has inspired me to actually give it a try with the girls.

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So my good fortune had me out shopping on Friday... trying to decide how to send the Easter spirit... I picked up partial trinkets for friends (but haven't been able to complete due to being sick) and decided to do something for the little kids that I know in my life... nieces, nephews, kids of friends.... but alas, they are all here bundled up just waiting to be mailed! And I promise!!! it wasn't my post office phobia that held me back this time!!! I was honestly and truly sick... so off they go in tomorrow's mail... at least the kids presents... not in time for Easter but I hope they truly don't mind.

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Then my good fortune continued this week. I received cards from Cindy (220/221/whatever), Emily (sorry Em, my chocolate bar came smooshed and opened... it had to be tossed... :( ... a card, pez candy and GOAT!! from Mary (love ya, Mare... I know you believe me!), and from Brenda, a cool camo basket filled with goodies! (Not sure how you think we spend our Easter if we need Camo baskets...but leave it to you to have us prepared for any event that we need to be camoflaged! Now that the snow is gone... wear white and lay down no longer works, right?)

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So thanks again one and all... love ya!!!

Great Friends...

That is exactly what I have... GREAT FRIENDS! On a day when I needed it the most, their kindness and generosity came thru in emphatic style.... and they didn't even know that I needed it. In today's mail, I received two catalogs, two advertisements, NO BILLS (for a change) and count them, five, yes, that was 5... pieces of fun, fantastic mail from friends... okay, one was a thank you card from the daughter of a friend but it was still great mail. I received 1 box, 2 envelopes and 2 cards... the box was a wonderful assortment of valentine's goodies... the two envelopes contained a treasure trove of BOOKS (one came from England and arrived in less than a week!)... quite honestly that envelope was for K2 but it made my day too... the second envelope of books was from my very favorite Book Pimp (and honestly the only person I know that truly deserves that name!) who sent me 4 books (including the newest Nora Roberts series) and a special treat... the envelopes contained the aforementioned thank you card and a Valentine's card& cd of LURVE songs from Ranger. This is right on top of receiving another book from the Book Pimp on Saturday and a envelope of books a few days ago from Cin. To you all, you have no idea how wonderful it was to get this mail today. It really made me smile and reflect on what fabulous friends I have. Something truly to be thankful for... I love ya!

I am doing better but still need to deal with some issues around here... tomorrow is another day. Plus, I am working tonight which lately is not a happy place for me to be. I promise to come out of my hibernation soon. I am not in the best of spirits and seemed to have lost my sense of humor right now... I need to clear some things up here at home before I will feel up to playing again.

I just really need to let you all know how wonderful you all are... and how truly lucky I am.

Do You Suffer From a Phobia?

There are so many different phobias these days, in fact, one for just about everything imaginable. There are phobias such as Acrophobia (fear of heights), Dentophobia (fear of dentists), Technophobia (fear of technology) and Philophobia (fear of phobias). Like millions of other people I, too, suffer from a phobia however, do you know what is worse than having a phobia... having a phobia that is not named! Yes, it's true... I searched the internet and could find nothing on it. Since I can find no tag for my phobia I have named it myself. It is postophobia. Yes, that's right. I suffer from a fear of post offices. Now this should not be confused with the postal carriers because in fact I love my mailman... well, most of the time. It is actually just post offices that I have a fear of. At least I must have because I can never seem to get myself to one to mail packages! Last year I had a package for a BB member who was being hospitalized. Do you know how long that package sat here? Three months! I finally opened it all up and dispersed the contents to other recipients. (BTW, that ill BB member received flowers instead after her treatments were completed.) It happened this summer as well. I would buy tons of stuff to send to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, however, so much of the stuff sat here either still in their Target bags or in shipping boxes. I did brave the post office a few times to send some out but so much of the stuff just sat. It was sad really.

Well, in July my brother-in-law, "J" was deployed. He spent his first 3 months of deployment in the States before heading for Kosovo. I promised him that I would send him packages and that I had some friends who would love to send him stuff as well. I knew that I could brave the post office - I mean really... this was my BIL! Of course, I would send stuff. Well, from the moment he touched down in Germany, I started shopping. I bought fun stuff, and snacks, DVDs and magazines. And... it sat! Finally, in December, 1 month after "J" arrived in Kosovo, the DH asked if I was ever going to do anything with all the stuff in the Target bags. So we sat and filed up 3.5 boxes of stuff. I taped them up and then... they sat... this time in boxes...but still they sat! Now so I don't sound like quite the heartless sister-in-law, I did mail cards to him and some included ITunes G.C.s but those were easy. I could either give them to the mailman or drop them in the box outside the post office.

Now while I was cowering in fear at the thought of going to the post office, my friends had sent cards and packages to him. One of these even included a cute little Charlie Brown Christmas tree. And what had I sent... well, no packages anyway! So this week, I knew... I just knew that I had procrastinated... errr.. I mean, been afraid for far too long! I needed to suck it up and force myself to the post office. I had made one earlier attempt but had forgotten to bring along "J's" address so even though I made it inside that time, I had had to turn right around and go back out. So on Thursday, I had all 3 of the boxes, a large envelope bound for Canada and 7 letters (one was a belated birthday card, that hadn't been late if only I had found some stamps). I walked inside and thank gawd it wasn't crowded so I couldn't use that as an excuse. I tried to find my "happy spot" as I battled the demons of fear and stood in line. Soon it was my turn at the counter and not a moment too soon.

"J's" packages were first.. well apparently I was too vague on his customs forms. Apparently writing toiletries and snacks was not enough... I need to write what types of these items are in there. So I gave her more detailed info... it didn't really matter as it was all lies anyway. Well, not completely, but really, I bought the stuff over 2 months ago and packaged it last month. How was I supposed to remember details. Well, except for the one smaller box that contained bottles of Lemonade Vitamin Water - liquid, a definite "no-no" in shipping. However, this little bit of info I figured they didn't really need. Next up was my envie to Canada... apparently that needed a customs form too... imagine that! However, at that point the postal clerk started making additions and adjustments to my parcel. Now it wasn't as if I wasn't already trembling, trying to reign control over my fear but after having been reprimanded (okay, maybe it was more of an informative telling) and then she pulls out her big red marker (umm... black pen) and starts making corrections (BTW, did you know that Canada post (or was it customs?) prefers all CAPS when addressing their envelopes?. I managed to get thru it, bought some stamps as well and had all packages, envelopes and cards taking from me and sent on their way. I then raced out of there as if the hounds of hell were biting at my heels. But I had done it! I had braved the post office and finally, yes, FINALLY! mailed off packages to "J".

So until my phobia is recognized I must continue to be brave and tough it out... or really just get off my lazy ass and get to the post office sooner!