Good Mail and Good Friends

As you are well aware my life has been kind of a hot mess lately. 

 Well never fear, between some serious retail therapy and some amazingly great friends

 I am feeling better.  

Although my dad did take a tumble today and that is never a call you want to receive, he is alright, thank goodness.

I thought I would share with you some of the great mail I have gotten lately. 

 First up a couple of purchases. 

 Some Nest from an ETSY shop, love those birds.

And a FQ bundle of Fort Firefly.  

I totally love this line!

Then I was a winner of this amazing book.  

If you have not looked at it you should.  

There are some very talented people in this book!

The quilts are super adorable too.

There was even a personal note to me inside from Amy!!  

Thanks Amy!!

My friend Pauline has been knitting up a storm and knitted me this fabulous Halloween scarf.

(sorry the photo is a little dark, it is still dark when I leave for work at 5am)

This is just one of MANY that she has made for me.

Thanks Pauline!

Then I received this big package in the mail on Saturday from my friend Dianne.

We have not met IRL yet, but I will make my way to her eventually!

(You have been warned)

She knows how much I love aqua and blues and greens and cats.

But really?  

Who doesn't know this about me right?

She is also a knitter/crocheter and made me this!

How exquisitely beautiful is this???

Those colors just make me want to do the happy dance!!

She even sent the left over yarn 

(I have no idea how to knit or crochet, LOL)

and just look at those sweet kitty scissors!!!!

She also knew it was my month to be the Queen in my bee.  

I chose aqua/bluegreen/greenblue airplanes.  

The pattern is from Quilter's Cache and it's called Lone Eagle.  

So she paper pieced me up a few or eight!  

AND sent me the left over fabrics to make more from !!!

Dianne, you are the BEST!!!

GOSH you guys!!!

I have no reason to feel sorry for myself.  

 I should feel blessed, and I do!

Thank you for reminding me.

Life is Good

Even if it is not always easy!!

~XOP~

Surprise, You've Got Mail!

I just have a minute to share.  Do you remember that I went to the MSU football game 2 weeks ago and the tailgate the College of Natural Science put on?  We went to the tail gate and we signed up for the raffle they were having.  There were a LOT of people.  Now fade into yesterday and look what I found when I went into my house

I thought my DH had ordered something but no, it had my name on it as well as Biomedical blah, blah, blah. Oh no, I thought, something from work. Then I read it came from East Lansing and I realized I won the BIG prize!!!

An amazing signed photo of the statue of Sparty that is on MSU's campus!!! I walked by him every day I went to school there!! I am thrilled!!

I also got a cool shirt, a pen, a window cling, a little pin and a really nice key chain (which DS promptly took, and I plan to covertly take back heheheh).

All this for a person that never wins anything!! YIPPEE!! ~XOP~

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~

A Day Just Like Any Other

Except that it wasn't...a day just like any other. It started out the same as other Saturdays. Body Pump and then Zumba. I had a hair appointment so had to leave Zumba early though because I had an appointment for a hair cut and highlight. I left early and went home to shower. I had to, I was so sweaty and my hair looked like I had been out in the rain! LOL. So I showered, ate and drove to my appointment. She happened to be running behind by an hour or so, bummer. So I sat there and waited. While I was waiting I got an alert on my phone. It said, "You're a winner!!" So of course I had to scroll down and read the whole thing. It was from Jodi at Pleasant Home telling me that out of over 700 entries, I WON A GO!BABY!! No ordinary day here!!! You may remember that I was supposed to get a GO! fro Christmas but just hadn't gotten around to ordering it yet and now I don't have to!!!!!! On top of that I got the cutest cut and highlight!!! I LOVE my new cut. I will have to have DH take a pic tomorrow and show you.

Whew so much excitement!!! Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket? Quiltin' Queen thinks so!!

I managed to finish block 3 of my Birdie Stitches BOM. Wanna See?? Ok here you go.



I'm fairly happy with how it came out. I need to practice my bac stitch a little more, but it is getting better.

Did I happen to mention that Quiltn' Queen and I are going to the AQS show in Lancaster in a week? We leave a week from tomorrow!! WOO HOO!!! Wanna know another thing? We may be going to Spring Market!!!! We are trying to work out the details at the moment. How cool would that be??

I'm going to have to try to calm down now, woo hoo. OK, I need a paperbag...breathe, breathe, BREATHE!!! XOP