I LOVE Surprises, Don't You?

I mean the good ones of course!  You know what I mean.  Someone brings you flowers, cleans your house, gives you that unexpected little gift.  I mean, c'mon, who wouldn't love that right?  Well I had 3 packages waiting for me when I got home yesterday.  THREE!!

First was a wee small one with the charms I won from the Sweetwater FB giveaway. I got to choose 3 charms from their website. I chose the three you see. Funny thing is that they had hometowns and so I thought no harm no foul asking for my own hometown and low and behold they sent it to me! Grand Rapids! How cool is that?? Thank you ladies of Sweetwater, I love my charms!

Now this is an "It's a small world" story so you might need a Diet Coke or a cuppa something to read it. I'll wait while you get something, go on, I'm serious! Back? Right then here we go.

When I first began blogging a LONG time ago (5 years ago to be exact) I found blogs, probably like everyone, by finding one, reading their blog list and finding more. One of the first blogs I read was Gone Aussie Quilting. I loved her blog, and I still love her blog. I followed her for quite sometime, through a period where she was not blogging much as she had a rough pregnancy. She blogged sporatically but always had the most amazing quilts to share!(and she still has the most amazing quilts to share!!) Bored yet? No? OK. So fast forward to recently and the HUGE release of the new Denyse Schmidt fabric at JAF. I belong to a group on Flickr that was all a buzz about it. Several of the Aussie's wanted it (as well as some people her in the US w/o a JAF) so I volunteered to go and get what they wanted. I ended up at the JAF near Ann Arbor and dropped some serious cash on all their fabric. I posted about it here.

I took it over to my friend Cori's house (Crazy Quilt Girl) and she helped me cut and then ship it out to everyone. One of the people was someone named Heidigoneaussie in Australia (or Oz). I was happy to help out my Aussie friends. Then, like a lightening bolt it hit me, Heidigoneaussie was Gone Aussie Quilting, or Jeannette!!! LOL, my friend!! Even funnier, I have learned that she grew up in Saline, MI which is very close to where I live now. Can you believe that??

I know, get to the point of the story right? Well, Denyse Schmidt released some of her fabrics only in Oz and Jeannette was sweet enough to send some FQ's to me. Even after I at first told her I didn't think I wanted them. She knew I would change my mind, LOL. So thank you to Jeannette for being such a wonderful friend! Here is what she sent me.

Can you guess which one is my favorite? If you know me at all you will easily guess. It's the aqua one third from the left!

Now if my evening wasn't good enough with all that goodness, just wait...there's more! Seriously, can you believe it?? The over the top generous Jeannette sent a few little gifties. A little FMF love (OMG!!!) and two amazing charm packs.

There are 20 charms of My folklore (how did you know I love this line with their Dala horses??) and the BEST EVER??? Forty squares of assorted Heather Ross fabrics!!!!!!!!!!!! I almost fell over with the excitement of her generosity! How do you make such wonderful friends that you  have never met IRL? How I ask you? Jeannette, when you read this, please know how happy you made me and I was not having the best of nights up until that point so from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!

I hope you all have some wonderful blogging buddies out there too. Remember making friends all around the world and sharing what we do and who we are is an amazing thing. I have had such great experiences with all my blogging friends. Most of them have been generous to a fault. I try to pay that forward when I get the chance too. One of my favorite sayings is what comes around goes around. It only takes a minute to be nice and you may just impact someone's life like you never expected you would. So go forth, my blogging friends and pay it forward today!! Tell them Mama Spark sent you!! ~XOP~