My mom to the rescue!!!!

Not the last time I was down visiting my parents but the time before that, my mom gave me a bunch of her sewing supplies.  Snaps and buttons and eye-hooks, Oh my!!!

Yesterday when I was getting ready for church, I was not thrilled about the way my cotton sweater was gaping open.  {NOTE:  Sixty degrees for a high means it won't be 60° in the morning when you leave for the 9:15 choir-run-through-of-the-special.  Sixty for a high means it will be 40-ish when you leave for said choir appointment.  Plan to blast the heat and drink green tea while notifying yourself that YES, you are 3 kinds of crazy for wearing a sundress and cotton cardigan.}

As I contemplated my gaping sweater conundrum, I remembered my sewing box o'treasures.

A quick perusal and the eye hook package was searched out. 

Another blessing to note ~ someone from church had a crafty neighbor go on to be with Jesus.  The church lady brought me bags of sewing treasures which included copious amounts of thread.

The perfect shade of green thread was found amongst the blessing basket o'thread.

Less than 5 minutes later, the gaping sweater conundrum ceased to exist.  My sweater closed and all was well.

I am so thankful for the shared sewing supplies.  What wonderful blessings!!!

My mailbox

My mailbox has seen more "action" this week than in times past...


On Monday, I received my passport.  Funny story - I wasn't expecting my passport to arrive so soon.  You see, I applied for it on March 4th and was informed at this time that it would take atleast 6 weeks.  In my head, I still had 3 weeks to go.  Imagine my surprise when I pulled out the certified insured envelope from my mailbox!  Not gonna lie - my first thought was WHY AM I GETTING MAIL FROM THE US GOVERNMENT???  WHAT HAVE I DONE???  Thankfully - the envelope contained my passport.  My unsmiling-in-the-photo passport.


On Tuesday, my mailbox was empty...which is always delightful as it means no bills and no junk mail. 


On Wednesday, a sweet little note from a creative type of gal arrived.  Totally made my day.  She talked about our adventures from 2010 and how "young" she was back then.  I love her dearly and it was such a blessing to read her sweetly penned note.


On Thursday, I received my passport-required certified birth certificate returned to me.  This was a blessing because I know have an officially stamped birth certificate.  {I'm still not sure where my original one ended up...but I am thankful I was able to go online and order another.}


On Friday, a note from Snohomish!!!  A note just for me. 


I love mail...perhaps this is why I love sending cards.  If getting mail gives me warm fuzzies, surely it has this effect on others too...right?

Have a fabulous Saturday! 

And write a note to someone. 

It could change their day!

Presidents' Day Shenanigans

Thrifted and then lunch with Stephanie & her girlies 

Helped someone re-learn knitting...said, "It's like riding a bike" and then sent up a prayer that this was really the case.

Went bowling with the Bodwells

:)

I don't get much mail...aside from my electric bill and random notifications from State Farm because clearly ~ like a good neighbor, they fill my mailbox.  :)

As of late, I have been receiving the sweetest notes from near and far.  Little reminders from friends of their love and prayers for me.  ME!!!!!!

Yesterday's note was another reminder of God's blessing of friendship and it included a sweet coffee-ish treat.  What a wonderful surprise!!!

It's sooo ruffilicious!!!!!!!

When this little surprise arrives in my friend's mailbox, I cannot wait to hear her reaction!!!!!

This is the reason I wanted a serger.....to be a blessing. :)

Four pairs of culottes for a lovely 7th grader...

Another fun sewing project....

 

The project:  2 Hello Kitty pillowcases

An 894 mile journey

 

The goal:  brighten a sweet girl's day

She's been sick and in the hospital for a little over a week.  Her mom's updates and posted Bible verses have been such an encouragement to me. 

Lemon - Lime Sherbet Scarf

It's fun, fun, fun to be a blessing!!!  Oh, how I enjoy knitting.  And what's more fun than knitting a scarf, attaching a super cute label, and lastly shoving it in a padded envelope to be mailed on its merry way...especially when the recipient has no idea that its coming her way!!!

Confession

Saying that I like cookbooks is like me trying to convince you that my hair has a slight natural curl!  

I LOVE COOKBOOKS!!!!!!  

Today, however, I am weeding through the ones I don't use in order to give them to my Bible study gals who might make good use of them.  

Happy Leap Day, Blog-Stalkers!!!!

  

Do something remarkable!  

Be a blessing!!!

Also -- kind of an FYI for those of you who...
A. love Caribou Coffee as much as the girl with curly hair;
B. live in the close proximity to Caribou Coffee;
C. want to get in on a fabulous deal!

Caribou Coffee is having Buy 1 drink -- get the 2nd free!  in honor of Leap Day!
You are welcome.  :)

One of those days...

Two weeks ago, I was handed a large document to re-format, make some misc. corrections, reprint and "make pretty."  Under normal circumstances, this is no biggee.  HOW-EVER....this document was thrice the size of our normal documents and I had 4 working days to complete everything. 

Three minutes.....3 minutes before the absolute final deadline, the document was printed and handed over to the proper authorities.  Rejoicing and full of thankfulness, I skipped out the door.

Unfortunately, the next day -- I woke up with a terrible "after-the-stress" migraine and stayed home in my jammies.

Day after the headache, I was handed another humdinger of a project from the same engineer.  This time, I was informed I had a week.  Delusionally for like 4 minutes, I forgot that I don't work on the weekends so a simple math combination 7 minus 2 told me I had 5 days to compile, correct, and perfect a 300+ page document.  Because I was... A) still in my right mind; B) upset about having a migraine over a project that was passed off to me with not adequate time...I managed to talk to the proper authority figure and it was determined that the statement, "Your lack of preparation is NOT my emergency" could be typed-up, printed-out, and framed and placed on the corner of my desk...a nice reminder for the engineer in charge of these two projects.  It was brought to my attention that an absurd amount of time was not LONG enough to get one's act in gear and work on things in a timely manner thus creating havoc in my (the secretary's) life.  I believe my reply at the close of our conversation was, "I will gladly give 100% to this endeavor.  I will work my best...but I will not have a repeat of last week this week.  Where I formerly worked was MY choice to allow that stress to transfer over from work to home and I will not be doing that ever again." 

Yesterday -- do you ever have days when you feel like....well, you feel like the picture below???

This picture was me yesterday.  For some reason unbeknownst to me at the time, the Word document was not allowing me to "CLEAR ALL FORMATTING" and reformat.  The numbers transformed into letters.  Obnoxious letters...  In one section, the "3" turned into "RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR"!  No joke.  I mean, I like to roll my r's...don't get me wrong.  But in this document that was just not cool...not cool at all.  Ironically the "4" in that same section turned into "SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS."  Guess what the "5" turned into?  Did you guess "TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT"?  If you did - congrats!  Kudos to you!

Sooo I left yesterday with about 87% of the document ready to go.  Actually, you know what -- it was more like 93% done and not a thread of sanity in-tact.  Infact somewhere around 3, I had a lousy attitude...so I stopped what I was doing...I moved my chair away from my computer (lest I damage the company property!) and I opened my Bible to the Gospel of John and I began reading...and I read and I read and I read...and then I prayed.  I believe it began, "Father, I have an absolute lousy attitude about a document that in the whole scheme of my life is not going to matter a hill of beans.  Please help me!!!!"  I knitted for a bit and then just turned off my computer and waited for the last 2 minutes of the day to come to a close so I could leave.  As I walked out to Rosie, I knew that the only cure for this dull-drum, bad attitude was to be a blessing to someone else.  A quick text to my partner in crime :) and we developed our plan. 

Ten pink tulips (5 of each shade) were purchased.  A mason jar was found.  Ribbon was cut and tied securely around the lip of said jar.  And we were off to the hospital to be a blessing...the true cure for the pity parties of life.

Our half hour visit was absolutely wonderful.  Partner in crime and I left encouraged and laughing about our delightful chat with the patient.  We are blessed!!!!!!

After being a blessing, I went and walked through the Hallmark store searching for a perfect VD card to send all the way to Seattle.  I read several cards...and then I found THE ONE.  I must confess, the card I selected is sooo not right -- which is what makes it absolutely perfect for this dear friend.  Picture this...two dogs on the front.  I believe they were those cute wiener dogs (my partner in crime knows about this one time that I was searching the RRStar and mispronounced their breed).  One of the two dogs on the card has a cone on his head.  (Are you already laughing because I am?)  The front said, "If we were two dogs and I had to wear one of those cones on my head, I know you would tell me that I look good."  Open up the card:  "That's the kind of friends that we are." 

Another card that I thought about getting was a women in a full body cast and on the inside, it read, "I'm so glad that you are good at picking our scarves!"  I was cracking up...I mean, LAUGHING OUTLOUD in the Hallmark store.  Those cards are hysterical!!!!  Also -- being in the Hallmark store helped me waste 15 minutes waiting for Rhonda to get to the gym.  2 birds ----> 1 stone.

This morning I went in to work armed with my Bible, prayer, and a much better attitude.  :)  The three go together, by the way!!!!  Somewhere around 10 a.m. I figured out the Microsoft conundrum that had been vexing my soul....the documents that I was given to edit were not just plain Jane ".DOC" documents...their file name was ".DOCX" --- that one little letter made all the difference and was the reason I could not format and UN-format the issues.  Praise the Lord!  Glory be!  I'm not losing my mind.  It wasn't me after all...

And that my friends was all that I needed to know.  I'm not going crazy.  :)  How absolutely delightful.

Tootles!

2

My first blessing of the week...our church bulletin
The song referenced on the front of this week's bulletin has been playing in my Corolla on my commutes to and from work...  It's song #4.  It's usually on repeat.  The other morning, I was singing along with the Northland ensemble and I was so consumed with the words - singing them prayerfully - that when I exited off of Bypass 20, I didn't really even realize that I had exited.  Rosie has auto-pilot...and on that particular morning, it worked fabulously!  No worries - the next morning, I was more aware of my driving.

The second form of encouragement came to me through the hands of the US Postal Service -- a handmade card.  Normally I am on the sending end of these delightful notes...I'm thankful the Lord allowed me to be a receiver.  It was such a thoughtful, caring little note.  And it reminded me that there are people praying for me.  Thank you, Robin, for brightening my day!!!

Enchanted Forests, lunch with my bestest friend, and a quiet evening...

Glue gun +Headbands + Faux flowers galore + Giggly girls = All made for a great way to spend a Saturday morning

The theme:  Enchanted Forest...complete with fairy dust, enchanted trees, sparkly wings, fairy wands, and a delightful day for a delightful 7-year old who informed me, "I don't feel any older, Miss Angie."  :) 

After the birthday festivities, I got to spend some quality time with my bestest friend.  I have had the blessing of seeing this friend twice in the past six days and I cannot begin to put into words how truly thankful and blessed I feel about being the given the gift of her precious time.  She is such an encouragement.  I don't have to weigh words -- I can just say whatever I am thinking/feeling and she doesn't judge me for just being me.  For this -- I am truly blessed. 

After lunch, we helped out another friend for a few hours...continuing our conversation from lunch.  Again -- I never ever fear with her that she is going to criticize my tears.  We have a safety in our friendship because we know that no matter what, we are going to be there for one another.  It's an amazing security. 

Before we parted ways, my encourager said, "I want you to go home, eat some soup, put on your jammies, and watch one of the early episodes of The Office.  I want you to laugh and relax."  I weighed the repercussions of canceling my plans -- (Yes, plural and totally on accident) -- one of the individuals has a terrible habit of cancelling plans on me and seemingly not feeling bad about it - which is fine.  I've come to expect no follow-through with this particular person thus leaving me free to create a Plan B with each Plan A that we create.  It's kind of fun.  And it does help me not to get torqued.  I don't expect follow through...  It's easier that way.  The second set of plans was with my crafty friend...who actually was totally fine with the cancellation.  She said, "Angie, I thought about ALL that you were doing today and I decided that we shouldn't get together tonight."  I interjected, "This time change...and it being sooo dark out right now at 7:10 -- it makes me want to crawl under the covers and go to bed." 

Needless to say -- watched the Dundies, donned flannel jammies, some homemade soup, and sparkly Christmas lights...I've had the most relaxing sort of Saturday evening.  Tomorrow begins Mission's Conference until Wednesday and then two free evenings...and then it's off to Georgia to spend a week with my brother and parents!!!  I cannot believe it will be happening in 7 more wake-ups/sleeps!!!!  Where did this last year go?  I just don't understand...

Dish Gloves, Scraping, and A Trip to Target...

Wow -- what an action-packed end to my week. 

Thursday evening, I had the opportunity to be a blessing and break out the cleaning supplies!  It was such an enjoyable evening.  It gave me a chance to get to know two fabulous little guys...and their delightful parents.  And let me just say...who does not love lavender cleaning supplies?  And green apple dishsoap?  All I can say, thank you for concocting girly-smelling cleaning products!!!!! 

Friday evening was 5 hours of wallpaper-scraping, laughs, and secrets shared among close friends. Another memory made...so that in a few months, I can look at the goofy pictures and remember...and smile.  There's something about scrape-scrape-scraping that brings out the craziness in us.  Ummm and can I just share -- if you are looking for a great arm work-out, scrape wallpaper.  It works alot of muscles!!!!  Add laughter and you can smooch 500 calories goodbye!  :) 

Saturday...blessed Saturday.  After purchasing groceries, I meandered through Target.  My purpose for the Target trip was to procure a package of cashews.  (Have I ever told you that I could probably consume my body weight in cashews?  It wouldn't be pretty...but it would tasty!!!)   While meandering about, I ended up seeing some crazy polka-dotted and heart socks that screamed two college students' names...what goes better with fun socks that Dove Milk Chocolates?  I mean, HELLO!  CHOCOLATE + SOCKS = Fun Package from Miss Angie... 

And now I have the entire evening to enjoy at my leisure.  Pitter-patter...

I hope you have had a delightful end to your week.