Making Friends...

I met a new friend yesterday. She and I have someone in common...Denise in Vermont.

 

I've known Denise for nearly 13 years. We met online when we both were involved with Mary Kay cosmetics. I was a sales director before moving to Florida, and Denise was a consultant in Vermont. After I moved here, I decided to return my product and "retire" with Handsome. I needed product and found her thanks to the internet.

 

We converse regularly, surprise each other with packages in the mail and delight in seeing photographs of our families and lives in two different states, yet we've never met in person. That's something I hope to remedy sooner, rather than later. However, Denise's friend, Marybeth has family about thirty minutes away from where I live and called me about getting together while she's visiting them in Florida.

 

So we made arrangements to meet for breakfast yesterday in Englewood. Meeting a friend of Denise's was a way to connect with my friend who is still up in the Vermont cold, but I know that Marybeth will carry one of my hugs all the way back north to give to Denise.

The two of us, and Marybeth's friend, Ruth, sat and gabbed for more than two hours as our waitress patiently refilled coffee cups for us. We talked about common interests, travel adventures...and of course, how loving and generous Denise is. It almost made me want to hop in Marybeth's suitcase to travel back to Vermont...almost!

I hope we'll be able to get together at least one more time before she has to leave next week. I had to cut this visit short as Handsome and I had plans across the state for the evening and had to get on the road. I'll tell you a little more about that tomorrow.

Denise, if you read my post today, I want you to know that Marybeth and I have one huge thing in common...our love for you! Thanks for sending your friend my way this week. Perhaps one day soon, I'll be able to hug you in person, too. That would be really wonderful.

With Love From Vermont...

 My beautiful and generous friend, Denise sent a wonderful package to me! I opened the mailbox on Saturday to find a complete surprise from Vermont. I couldn't wait to get back to the house to open it. I love surprises!   Denise, I can't tell you how much fun I had opening all the little packages  inside. Wrapped around all those smaller packages was this lovely tea towel.  1985. You don't even know how special this was to me.

Handsome and I were married in 1984, and that first two weeks in January, 1985, we were on our honeymoon in Grand Cayman in the British West Indies.    There are so many fond memories for us. Our honeymoon, our first year of  marriage, and the beginning of our life together as husband and wife. I know Denise chose it because of the acorns and oak leaves, but  I love it for many more reasons!

Then, I opened another package to find these beautiful spoons and acorns. She packed actual real acorns along with all my other gifts. I felt like a giddy kid.

They really are spoons with acorns! Just look at the beautiful pattern on the handles! Complete acorns and oak leaves adorn the fronts of each one. They're so perfect.

Then, I turned them over to find more details on the back. There are  more oak leaves, but on the back, you'll only see acorn caps...no acorns.

  They really are wonderful and I'll treasure them forever.

Denise also tucked in another fabulous find. Goodness, this girl knows me so well! It's a Guide to American Needlework from the Winterthur Museum. It's stuffed with great reading and photographs of beautiful, historic needleworks.   I'm going to savor every, single page! I'll brew up a pot of tea and put up my  feet to spend an afternoon engrossed in the pages of these books. Heavenly!

 Denise always adds some tasty Vermont maple candies, which I then share with Handsome. (He said, "Thanks, Denise!") Her message was on the back of this restful, peaceful image. This is a picture she took of her and her husband's favorite place to get away. I can completely understand that. That's a stunning sunset. I can almost feel the warmth of the setting sun on my face. aaaahhhhh.
Thank you, my friend for thinking of me, yet again. Whenever I think of you and Neil, I thank God for the friendship we've forged over all these years. I'm so very grateful that we were brought together, and hope someday to be able to hug you in person. Until then, know that you're always in my daily prayers. xoxo

Meals on Wheels...

 Denise G. and I have known each other for thirteen years...and we've become

good friends without ever having been in the same room together. The 

Internet is a wonderful thing, indeed. We have always exchanged gifts for 

special occasions, but we often trade with each other for no particular reason at all.

Denise is much more organized than I am this year, so her gifts arrived way

ahead of her receiving mine this Christmas. She always includes goodies from

 Vermont, but there is always something completely, uniquely, perfect for me.

 This year, tucked in among the maple candies, home-grown holly and special

syrups, I found a new book entitled, "Meals on Wheels". She found a book

written specifically for trailer campers in her friend's antique shop! WOW!

 Although it looks nearly new, this little gem was written in 1937.

 

I couldn't help but smile when I looked at the illustrations.

I might just have to transfer these to fabric, stitch one or two and

make pillows for the Flying Cloud (and Denise) when they're done!

 I've already read the book cover-to-cover and loved every bit of it. There's 

information ranging from "Housekeeping" to recipes, but one of the chapters 

that was most fun for me was the chapter on "Cooking Equipment".

 Handsome and I are always aware of the amount of weight we add to our

tow package, so you can just imagine how I giggled reading this list. It's 

actually much, much more than I would ever pack onboard for traveling. 

When I turned the page, there were more items that they considered

"optional", like a waffle maker, pressure cooker, or roaster. That's crazy!

I showed the list to Handsome, suggesting that I tend toward 'underpacked'.

He laughed. I don't blame him, either. While the book is loaded with useful

information, they definitely are willing to add more frivolous weight than we are.

Denise suggested that this might be a good addition to our travel library. You are 

so right, my friend! Thank you for everything you carefully chose for us this year. 

I'm looking forward to "tucking in" to all our goodies. Your package will be

 on its way this week. I hope you and Neil enjoy what I've chosen for you, too!

Merry Christmas hugs across the miles.

Goodness From Vermont...

 A delightful surprise arrived from Vermont over the weekend...and my 

"extended" Birthday celebration continues! My dear friend, Denise (and her 

sweet husband, Neil) always remember. I gasped when I opened the box.

 Of course, I opened my Birthday card first, but this is the first item I

found. One yard of Irish Donegal tweed in the most stunning aqua color!

I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but I do know that it will be

something fabulous just. for. me. For now, I'll just enjoy looking at it.

 Denise always finds the most unique acorn items for me, too. This 

year, she sent this tiny acorn and squirrel salt & pepper set. Aren't they 

adorable? The disc behind it is the most yummy-smelling bar of soap,

with my initial (It's a "D"!) in the center. Hmmmm. Should I use it, or 

tuck it into a drawer to make the contents smell yummy, too? 

You might think this was more than enough for one lucky girl, but

Denise tucked artificial acorns all around these gifts, making yet

another surprise. I placed them into a candy dish that Denise gave

me last year to show them to you (in the first photograph). How fun!

Thank you, Denise and Neil. We've been friends for nearly thirteen

years, and I'm a better person for knowing you. I look forward to 

seeing you (either in Florida or Vermont or somewhere in between)
so that I can thank you both face-to-face. Hopefully, soon!

Love and hugs, 

Acorns and A Blogger Tutorial...

Another gift in the mail this week - this one from my sweet girlfriend, Denise. She sent me beautiful marbled craft paper - and Vermont acorns. She harvested them from her back yard last fall before the snow covered them. Thank you, Denise. You know I love the acorns and the paper is stunning! I'm waiting for a flash of inspiration on what to do with the paper. I'm sure going to have fun with them. Thank you, Denise!

Blogger's "Pages" Feature

Many of you responded that you'd like me to tell you about the new "Pages" feature on Blogger's gadget menu. If you have any questions after this post, you can leave it in the comments section, or email me directly.

Believe me, I'm not particularly brave about adding something new to my blog. I always save my template before I do things like change colors, font or add code. I'm perhaps a little more comfortable with code because I've been an eBayer for over ten years, and in the "old days", if you wanted large or colored font, italics, etc. you had to enter them in html format. Now, just like here, you can accomplish that with simple button clicks. There's no need to save your template. You won't be messing with that. This is really as simple as writing a post and adding a gadget, which I'm sure you've already done.

So, here's what I did to add some new pages to my blog menu bar (located directly under my blog banner). Oh...I did the color block through another blog tutorial a while back. I'd have to go searching for those instructions, but I think I found the "Add a menu bar" tutorial on All Blog Tools before Blogger made this new feature available. You won't have that color block unless you link to a tutorial for that. (Hint: I did a Google search: "Blogger Menu Bar" and found lots of entries to explore!)

To add your own "Page" through Blogger is a wonderful feature. You won't have to backdate the post and bury it as you've done before. I usually open my blog in a second window on my desktop, so that when I'm ready to start transferring something into a Page, I can just cut and paste from one window to the other. It's just easier for me that way.

NOTE: You may want to open a second window on your desktop now and bring up your blog so that you can click along with what I've written below for clarity. Just think of it as a test page, which you can easily delete later.

So, sign into your blog and then go to the same place you'd go to write a new post. There you'll see tabs for "New Post", "Edit Post", and "Edit Pages". That's the one you want to click on. Once there, you'll click on "New Page". Once you click on it, you'll write your page title and add your content.In my case, I wanted to make a special page just for all the blog giveaways that I post for you. I wrote a short message and then went back to the other window I had opened for my blog and clicked on the wrench to edit the first blog giveaway gadget. I pulled the giveaway photo from that giveaway onto my desktop so I could capture it for the new page. (Which I then did.) I want to place the link back to the giveaway under the photo (because they wouldn't let me link it by clicking on the photo), so I clicked under the photo first and then clicked the "link" icon. I copied the url from the other window, and then pasted it into the link on the new page. You will see that the url appears in the first box as well as the second. You can remove the url from the first box and type in the name of the blog (which I did). Now when your followers click on that blog title, it will take them to the giveaway.

OK, those are trees, and you still want forest. Sorry. So, type whatever you want into the page content and then click "save".

Now, if you go to your blog, you will see a gadget for "Pages", probably located in your sidebar. Click on its wrench (remember you're still signed in), and you'll see something that looks like this: (click on it to enlarge the image and check it out. I'll wait...tick...tock...tick...tock...)
Because I already had a "Home" link on my original menu bar, I unclicked that here, so that I wouldn't have two. You will want to check the "Home" link so you have one in your menu bar. It's already preloaded with your Blogspot url.

You'll see that you can choose where you want your Pages gadget to appear. In my case, I wanted it up top, so I went to "Customize" (you've done that before), and dragged it to where I wanted it to go (just like you'd do with your other gadgets). Now you have the start of your Pages! Go ahead...add more! No dates appear at the top, no comments will appear on your link. You're going to love this new feature. Let's see...hmmm... what else can I move?

Remember, you can contact me if you have any other questions about this. I'm no genius, but I'll to help you any way I can.