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.

****

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.

****

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?)

***

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

Faster than a Speeding Bullet

Okay, maybe that should have a MOOG (mind out of the gutter) tag on it... What I am referring to is The Magic Bullet (HA! That doesn't sound much better! MOOG!) A few weeks ago a wonderful friend sent me one of these handy little gadgets. So far it has been used almost every single day by each of my children. The kids who complained every morning about cold cereal, esp K1 and K2 who would often leave for school without eating any breakfast, are now having smoothies each and every day.

They all have yogurt (peach, strawberry or vanilla) add in a packet of Carnation Instant Breakfast powder (vanilla or chocolate), some fresh or frozen fruit (bananas, strawberries, peaches, raspberries, etc), some skim milk and 3 ice cubes and blend away! I actually feel fine sending them out the door with this in their stomachs. They are getting a little bit of everything and claim they are FULL after downing an entire glass. I no longer hear cries of pain at the thought of eating cold cereal only requests of "Mom, can you make me a smoothie?"

So a HUGE thank you to this friend for sending me one of these... it has now become the most used motorized gadget in my house.

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.

Winter Blahs...

I don't know if it is winter in general or more specifically the arctic cold temps that we have had for a few days but I have felt like crap lately. I'm moody and just hate it. Little things have just set me off lately. I am trying to focus on the positive to try to draw myself out of this funk.

On Suz's BB, I am sure there are people complaining about my cheerleader attitude this week but so what. I have recieved lots of encouragement from some of those ladies in the past (and still do) but I rarely post back any support. I am hoping that by reading every post and replying back with something positive that I can come away with feeling better too. Don't you feel better when something you say or do makes someone else smile?

I have also been thinking alot about friendships lately... why some friendships work and others fail. I have some friendships that are over 20 years old, a friend from high school that we have fallen to just sending Christmas cards to and three from college (two of those from my first days of dorm life). Two of these live fairly close and yet we see each other only a couple times a year usually at one of our kids birthdays. The third college friend lives 3 hours away but we talk weekly and see each other once sometimes twice a year. Then I have newer friends who I have known less than a year, with a couple having become extremely important to me.

When a friendship ends or goes thru rocky periods how does it affect you? For me... I usually end up blaming myself...going thru lots of self-doubts wondering what it was I did, what could I have done differently. There tend to be lots of tears and emotional upheaval. However, I am coming to the realization that sometimes it isn't just me...sometimes it's the other friend or a combination of the two. But trust once trampled on is very hard to replace...especially with no explanation offered.

I know that I have lots of work to do in being a better friend. I worry too much about saying the wrong thing that lots of times I say nothing and this too may send out a message that I don't care. I don't consider myself a great communicator and really need to work on that... maybe that will help too.

There is a website called 43 Things where they encourage you to list 43 things/goals that you want to do. They can be long term, short term... whatever you want. On my list, two of my items involve friendships. I just need to figure out which ones require work... and which ones are worth putting the effort into...