Especially for Jenny, Another Birthday Candle

This is how the candle-taped-to-the-treat-idea began, Jenny.  :)  I couldn't get home for my 2009 birthday, so in the package Mom mailed that year, she included a pink candle taped to a store-bought cupcake.  :)  (The little one-story pink house beside it was a flea market find from just the day before, she had explained on the card.  [I am always looking for cute one-story houses.])  The candle really is a charming idea, and one I need to remember more often.  I clipped from a magazine years ago the idea to mail someone a box of already-blown-up gifts along with his/her birthday gift, and I love that but have yet to try it.  (I always imagine the balloons bursting during shipping.  [I should mail blown-up balloons to myself first as a trial.]  Anyway, here's to sweet moms and sweet ideas.  ♥

The First Ten Days of the Year

The new year is beginning with a flurry of book-buying for my former elementary school.  I will have donated about six hundred books by the end of this month so am very much on-track with my goal of donating a thousand by my fortieth birthday in May.  "Did you know that all media's now half-off on Sundays?" the thrift shop cashier asked me last week as she rang up my stack of books.  I did not, and the new prices will make my goal even easier to reach this spring.  'Fifteen like-new hardcover books last week for practically nothing--like a wink from the universe.  ♥  I also did not know that Mary Poppins dolls existed--!--and lo and behold, this one, complete with carpetbag and umbrella, will soon be flying off to the school with the related books. 

Mom's January 4th birthday proved tricky to get a package out in time for since there was no mail here January 2nd for the New Year's postal holiday and I didn't want to mail it the Saturday before and have it--with cookies inside--sit in a post office or postal truck over the three-day weekend.  With a few little wrapped gifts nestling them inside the box, gluten-free nut roll cookies ended up being Mom's birthday treat this year.  I used a bag of Bob's Red Mill-brand gluten-free pie crust mix and was completely charmed by the packaging.  This would make a darling print.  And it's pink!  ♥

My original plan had been to make rugelach, but the dough was too sticky to roll properly and I hadn't remembered to leave myself enough of the flour for that purpose, so after a messy attempt at the rugelach, I ended up making a dozen nut roll cookies for Mom instead.  Had I put a bit more thought into my Plan B, I'd have made a tidier thumbprint cookie with the nut filling so they would have looked prettier.  Next time.  These turned out, though, with the nut-mixture mixed right into and around the dough, and they tasted good.  

The nut-mixture was about 7 oz. of walnut-meal, maybe 3/4 cup whole milk, a cup or so of sugar, an egg, and most of a stick of butter--cooked until boiling, then just kind of rolled into the pie crust-cookie dough.  Next time I make these, I'll add some of the walnut-meal to the flour so there will be more nut-flavor throughout. 

I baked them early in the morning on January 3rd--the day before Mom's birthday, so. . .cutting it close--practically ran to the post office with the package as soon as I'd finished wrapping it all, and was told that it likely wouldn't reach her until the day after her birthday.  Bah! to postal holidays!  And no, it did not arrive in my parents' morning mail delivery on Mom's birthday, which made me sad.  (She did not care--"Getting mail tomorrow will just extend my birthday, Vally!"--but I very much did.)  We talked just a few minutes that afternoon since she and Dad were on their way out dinner and a movie.  She called me before I left for work the next night to let me know that just as they'd been leaving for dinner, a postal van had pulled up to drop off her package--an unprecedented second mail delivery in a single day for them--so she had received it on her birthday, after all.  ♥  And yes, she loved the cookies.  :)

As the temperature outside has bounced from a painful 8° one day to now-raining-and-near-40° a few days later, I have mostly been a homebody, contentedly sorting books and puttering around the apartment, save for walks to and from work, the thrift shop, and the post office.  'A peaceful and most satisfying first ten days of the year. 

♥

Nut Roll

'Not the most appetizing picture, I'm thinking, but since I didn't think to take one after the nut roll was baked, this is the only shot I have of it.  Mom loves nut rolls but hadn't had one in a few years since going gluten-free in 2011 for various health issues, so I decided I'd bake her a gluten-free one and "Priority Mail" it to her for her birthday this week.  It reached her about twenty-two hours after I'd taken it out of the oven, which was the best I could have hoped for, and she loved it, but may I just say what a messy process this was!  I used this recipe but with a different gluten-free flour mixture, and while it did taste quite good, it seemed like surely, this was twice the amount of filling needed?!  I was smart enough, at least, to have decided from the start the other day to divide the dough and filling into three nut rolls, considering the first my trial one and whichever was the best of the other two the one I'd send Mom.  'So glad I did it that way--three cheers for thinking ahead, yes--because the filling I added to the first roll seeped through the dough and stuck to the baking pan I used.  The nut roll I ended up mailing with Mom's other birthday gifts was not messy-looking, but even though I'd spread a little less filling into that one and tried to wrap it more tightly than the first, and even though I'd rolled the dough between sheets of parchment paper too, the dough remained so sticky (as gluten-free dough always seems to be), it just didn't roll up into the beautiful log I'd envisioned.  (And by the time I baked the third roll, I hardly cared, since Mike doesn't eat many sweets and still had Christmas morning cinnamon rolls here anyway and I'm not a fanatic about these the way Mom is.)  Mom loved it, regardless, and was tickled with the tea pot address labels and stickers I'd included with it, as well, so all's well that ends well, and happy birthday, Mom.  :)  Of course, a few days after I'd made and mailed it, I found a magazine article that suggested using ready-made gluten-free pie crust and the same walnut filling to make gluten-free rugelach, which tastes--to me, at least--just like this nut roll did anyway, and yesssss, that will likely be the way I do this next time.  Given the large amount of dough that this recipe makes and the cost of the gluten-free flour mixture, and since it's a just-at-Christmas treat for (really) just one person anyway, going the easier route may be the way to do it next time.

Aunt Laurie's Birthday

My dear Aunt Laurie's birthday is today.  The simple little package I mailed her this Monday reached her on Christmas Eve, and I've been happy this week as I imagine her opening her aqua tissue-papered gifts. I made the aqua gingham puffy heart ornament ornament above and was thrilled with how it turned out.  I had enough of that fabric left in my scrap bag and enough lace--just enough lace--to add the trim and to cut one small snowflake-shape from it. 

I wrote her a letter and had prints made of a bunch of recent photos so she would be caught up on things--"a visit in a box," I called it--wrapped those in tissue, sprinkled a package's worth of white peanut butter cups (since she and her family don't like chocolate [I can't imagine]) around it, framed a favorite photo of her and Mom in an aqua and turquoise floral frame I'm no longer using, and packed it into the bottom of the small aqua toy suitcase that this crochet kit came in when I received it last Christmas.  (I got nowhere learning from the kit, so I will have to take lessons somewhere.  And I'm glad to give the suitcase a new home.) 

I saw this vintage Christmas card online awhile back and saved the picture to the computer to make a 4" x 6" print of, and after I punched a hole into the top, that print became a gift tag I tied onto the suitcase's handle with curling ribbon.  The girl in the illustration reminds me so much of Aunt Laurie.  ♥

With more curling ribbon, I tied the heart onto the suitcase handle too. 

And it has been sweet all week knowing that from a bag of candy, some reprints, and odds and ends around the apartment, I got a very Aunt Laurie-ish package together.  I hope she has had the happiest of birthdays.  ♥

Thanksgiving Fudge and Frogs

The sore throat I dodged a few weeks ago has returned, so the Thanksgiving mail I'd hoped to send out this week remains a stack of blank cards and unaddressed envelopes while I laze about trying to nurse myself back to better health.  We'll see how tomorrow looks.  Tonight I'm remembering this package of maple-walnut fudge I mailed to Aunt Laurie a few Thanksgivings ago.  (I think this was the recipe I used.  The fudge was quite rich, but good.)   My sweet aunt is not really a frog-collector, or to be more accurate, she is not really a frog-collector of her own volition.  As a kid, I told my mom that since her older sister's favorite color was green, we should start her a collection of something that color, and frogs were what I came up with--!?--so for about thirty years now, long-suffering Aunt Laurie has received frog-themed nonsense from me.  ♥  In 2011, I taped this Kermit inside the turquoise pencil case I filled with the fudge, and one Thanksgiving, a magazine clipping of a photo of Kermit-as-a-Macy's-Parade-Float adorned her card's envelope.  Fudge-making likely won't be happening here this week, but I hope to mail out a Thanksgiving sticker-ed card or two--and at least one bit of mail with some smiling green silliness for my dear aunt.  

Mom's Birthday Package

New Year's Eve morning, I walked Mom's birthday package over to the post office, quite sure she'd be tickled with not only the little gifts, but also with the extra care I'd taken with the wrappings.  Her birthday was Saturday and was my first opportunity to work on my goal of wrapping gifts more thoughtfully this year.  I made a trip to a Michaels craft/art supply store the day before to buy a few wrapping supplies and found the white curling ribbon, the spool of red gingham ribbon (that I used as both a gift and to make a bow), the small red paper bag, the black chalkboard tie-on, and the blue gingham tissue paper.  I was delighted.  She is redecorating--she is always redecorating  :)--her kitchen in a red/cream/gold French Country style this new year and will be working in the many red gingham and chicken and rooster-related things she already has, so I was happy to find red hen note cards and recipe cards on Christmas clearance there to tuck in with the gifts I'd already set aside for her too.  A successful and inexpensive visit to the store, and I liked the way everything looked when it was all packaged-up.  

Do you guys know about Dover-brand stickers and sticker books?  An art supply/picture-framing business in my hometown used to carry them back when I was in high school, and I have loved them ever since.  They can probably still be found in similar stores, but Dover also has a website, and their products can be ordered through amazon, as well.   My favorite thing of Dover's, besides all the classic books that can be found as "thrift editions" there--Mike bought my $2.50 copy of Dickens' A Christmas Carol from them our first Christmas together in 2007--is their beautiful sticker books.  They're almost always $1 or $1.50 and come in all kinds of themes:  Angels, sports, tea time, friendship, holidays, birds, animals, desserts, fashion, stained glass, etc.  They're the perfect size to tuck into a greeting or birthday card envelope (about 4" x5"), and the illustrations themselves are so dear.  For Mom's birthday this year, I had ordered the "Tea Time" sticker book.  ("Of course," you would nod if you knew my mom.)  Below is a close-up of the cover of the book (photo from Dover).  And only $1.50!  You can see why I'm charmed.  ♥

The Dover stickers are one of those "best-kept secrets of the internet," I think, since I don't know that that many people know about them, and they're so worth it, so now you know, and feel free to spread the word.  :)  The stickers books are the right size for small gifts, include-in-a-card gifts, stocking stuffers, Easter basket goodies, or to keep in a purse for waiting rooms.  Some are activity books with stickers that can be repositioned/rearranged.  I know I've bought my nephew and older niece decorate-a-Christmas-tree sticker books, decorate-a-cupcake (and maybe a pizza) ones, a this-is-my-classroom kind of one for their first days of kindergarten, and I think I got them beach activity ones before too.  Mom and Aunt Laurie have received tea ones, dessert ones, friendship ones, holiday ones, and angel ones from me.  There are so many themes.  And if you ever need to tack a dollar or two on to an amazon order to qualify for free shipping, they're handy for that too.  :)  Just so fun. Now you know. 

I used a red gingham dish towel to wrap a magazine and the blue gingham tissue to wrap a book and to line the inside of the box.  I was hoping the store would have red gingham tissue paper, but that right there is why I want to plan ahead and shop for gift-wrapping supplies ealier--and year-round--and just more thoughtfully from now on:  The red would have been perfect for her, but I thought of it too late.  I want to become a "step-ahead" kind of person, like Aunt Laurie, this year regarding my gift-wrapping.  It will make it easier on me and more fun for the gifts' recipients.  I talked with Mom Saturday night, and she had had a lovely birthday, which was sweet to hear, and she went on and on about how pretty everything here was, so "Package #1" this year was successful.  ♥  A fun start to the gift-giving year. 

Aunt Laurie, Queen of Curling Ribbon

Aunt Laurie's birthday is today.  I mailed her a small package Saturday afternoon, and according to the postal tracking, it arrived Christmas Eve, just as I'd hoped it would.  "Late-breaking" Christmas Eve gifts are especially fun, I think, although Mom, Dad, and I still laugh about the fact that a few Christmas Eves ago, the mail carrier stomped through the snow up to my parents' door and delivered a package that turned out to be a box of vitamins my dad had ordered.  Boo.  Booooo.  :)  Aunt Laurie and my mom always ship their Christmas gifts to each other--and include in each other's boxes a few birthday gifts too, since Aunt Laurie's birthday comes right after Christmas and Mom's is the first week of January--and receiving and unwrapping Aunt Laurie's Christmas box every year has been one of my favorite parts of the holiday for as long as I can remember.  Her Christmas package had arrived at my parents' house for the holiday the same day I did this year, December 16th, and my mom let me be the one to open it when I got in that night.   

My dear aunt understands the power of presentation.  Receiving one of her gifts is an "Oooh!  Ahhhhh" experience.  (This goes for not only Christmas gifts, but also Easter baskets and presents for showers, birthdays, and "anytime.")  Better than anyone else I know, Aunt Laurie wraps and package her offerings in ways that add to the gaiety and sweetness of an occasion.  The gifts our families exchange are not extravagant, but opening gifts from her makes us feel rich just the same because she puts such care into their wrappings.  A loaf of homemade bread will arrive wrapped in a checkered tea towel with a  sprig of Holly tucked inside the folds of fabric.  A snowflake-shaped spatula will be tied with colorful ribbon to a pouch of pancake mix and come packaged in an oven mitt.  Her signature sprinkled Christmas cookies are almost always displayed in clear-topped containers--this year's cookies were inside shallow plastic-lidded boxes that Christmas cards had originally been sold in--that are then finished with curling ribbon.  

Always, curling ribbon!  Probably because my mom used those shiny peel-and-stick bows, Aunt Laurie's elaborate curling ribbon bows and wraps made a big impression on me as a kid.  They always made everything seem more cheerful.  She uses curling ribbon not only to make bows, but also to keep multiple little gifts for one recipient held together, and she is known for attaching ornaments and other package tie-ons with it, as well. 

And the ornaments and tie-ons she finds just add to the fun. Last year was the first year I took the time--and/or started my Christmas preparations early enough--to search a few local thrift shops to find something appropriate to attach to each of my presents given to family, and I concluded from my searches that Aunt Laurie surely looks for these tiny items all year long.  Things like Holly and berry sprigs can be found, especially on-sale, for pennies at craft stores on holiday clearance-- 

--but other things, like a miniature stuffed dog for my nephew--

--likely appear in thrift shops for ten or twenty-five or fifty cents all year.  A single plastic tea cup from a child's toy tea set?  Tied with curling ribbon onto a prettily-wrapped box containing a vintage tea cup, mismatched vintage saucer, and some of my mom's favorite tea bags.  Holiday-themed pens or pencils taped onto coloring and puzzle books for my older niece and nephew.   "My" embellishments this Christmas were the sprig of red and white berries and the glittery snowflake ornament, both now on the tree.  

The round tin below has a Rite Aid (drugstore) label on the bottom, and if I'd seen it there this year, I probably would have picked it out for myself, I love it so much.  (This was part of our gift from her this year.  The fabric under the tin's lid is a green plaid dish towel, and under it was a package of green cupcake or muffin papers, a green candle, and a vintage candle pedestal.  See?  So simple, but so sweet.)  Aunt Laurie has a knack for finding great tins and hat boxes and baskets to use as gift containers too.  The gifts in the first photo at the top of this post were all kitchen/dining-related and had been layered into a mixing bowl for my mom.  When I once again squealed to Mom over this thoughtfulness this Christmas and repeated for the umpteenth time that I really want my own gifts for others to be packaged this cleverly, she understood but reminded me that her older sister has her entire attic set up year-round as a crafting/gift-wrapping area so enjoys more storage space than most people do.  That's true.  I shop year-round for Christmas gifts but lack a single place to keep them all til the holiday--and I surely lack space for an assortment of ribbons, laces, tapes, tissues, and tie-ons, to boot--so my own preparations are, so far, lacking the organization Aunt Laurie's got going for her.  I keep a few rolls of gift wrap in a tall wire basket, and I usually have a few stick-on bows and a roll or two of curling ribbon on-hand, but I have nothing like Aunt Laurie's set-up here.  However she manages it, the gifts she creates are lovely.  

Even the stickers she adorns the outside of her boxes with are adorable.  The "Christmas long johns" stickers she used on her package for my family this year-- 

 --matched some of the sheets of tissue paper inside, and we all got a laugh out of the design.  Sometimes she'll layer sheets of tissue between layers of presents.  One of the fun things about her packages--and why I've always loved opening them--is that she uses so many different wrapping paper styles, tissue paper colors, and tie-ons that each person's gift is somehow unique, even on the outside, from everyone else's.  Sometimes a tiny container of cookie-decorating sprinkles or colored sugars will simply have a to/from label stuck to it.  Sometimes a pair of gloves for my dad or brothers will contain a candy cane.  The "Ooh!  Ahh!" comes from slicing open the cardboard and seeing the sea of assorted colors and textures and patterns, truly Christmas-in-a-Box. 

The beautiful gift-wrapping Aunt Laurie is famous for in our family is one of the skills I most want to learn from her.  I think I get a tiiiiiny bit closer each year, but I'm not there yet, and I'm certainly not organized about it.  If someday my nieces and nephew appreciate looking at--not just unwrapping, you see, but even just looking at--the gifts I send them the way I've always anticipated seeing Aunt Laurie's, I'll know I got it right.  The little package I sent to her and her family last Saturday was colorful and sweet in its way, but I had waited too long/was too disorganized, so while the modest gifts inside were things she, her husband, and their son will enjoy--a Christmas-themed gnome tin filled with peanut butter cups, a small aqua vase for her aqua dining room, a few yards of green floral fabric, an album of family photos, a birthday card that "looks like her," prints of some of my Christmas/mantel decorating with notes on the backs, some green floral fabric, and a package of stickers she had admired before but hadn't been able to find locally--the way I wrapped them was more slap-dash than I had wished:  No ornaments or tiny "extras" tied to the presents, no pretty tissue paper to cushion it all, and no variety in the gift wrap.  But next year!  Next Christmas!  Because I really want this to be one of  the things I learn from Aunt Laurie.  And I want this to be the year I make a real effort to get better at it, although that will mean periodically making trips to the craft store for ribbons and pretty wrapping supplies, frequenting thrift shops throughout the year--instead of in one frantic December visit to search for ornaments and tie-ons--and then finding room here to store it all.  Some would say this is trivial--"Gee, Val, what a goal for the new year"--but it really isn't trivial at all.  Nothing that makes your loved ones feel more loved is trivial. 

 "There is something about receiving a beautifully wrapped gift 

that touches the child in all of us."  

~  Christine Fritsch

♥

Dad and the Val-Mark Corporation

I don't think my dad has ever received a store-bought card from me.  Starting when I was a kid, I've always drawn his card--he's the only one in the family who gets these goofy things--and the tradition continued yesterday with the mailing of his 2013 Father's Day card and care package.  Each year's Father's Day and birthday cartoon reflects some current in-joke or happening between us.  This year's was a depiction of him proudly standing beside the mantel he built for me and Mike.  He is, of course, clad in a Pirates baseball t-shirt and denim cut-off shorts.  (This is what he's almost always wearing in my drawings.  It's part of the tradition.) 

Another--and more integral-part of the hand-drawn card tradition is my tagline on the back:  "Val-Mark:  ♥  When you care enough to make the very best."  I considered that pretty clever when I thought of it as a kid.  Now, it's just tradition, and tradition must be upheld!  Dad knows it will always be there on the back of all of his cards from me. 

This year's card was nestled in a shoe box between a letter and some recent photos, a couple wrapped gifts, and a bunch of edibles.  An Almond Joy or Mounds bar appears somewhere in all his birthday and holiday gifts from me.  Once when I was staying with my grandparents for a few days in the summer, the day my parents were to pick me up happened to be my dad's birthday, and my grandmother asked me as we were out shopping the day before what I'd like to get my dad for his gift.  She just smiled as I went to a checkout line to grab a candy bar, and I overheard her telling my dad the next day, "I asked Val what she wanted to get you for your birthday, and she said she always gives you one of those?"  She sounded bemused, but I wasn't embarassed as I listened-in because Dad's response was something along the lines of a kindly laughing "Well, yes, it's tradition."  ♥ 

Dad's Beagle-and-heart-covered shoe box is winging its way toward him as I type this and should reach him tomorrow.  And until his August birthday rolls around, the Val-Mark greeting card industry has again closed up shop.  ♥

2013's Valentines

I've always thought of Valentine's Day as the highlight of post-Christmas winter.  Just when the season seems endlessly cold and bleak, Valentine's Day arrives with its cozy reds and warm pinks and its gifts of love and flowers and pretty sweets and kind words.  A little girl in my care at work last week put two and two together while we were making cards and exclaimed, "Hey!  Val!  Valentine!  VALentine!"  I told her that the fact that my name is in it was part of the reason I loved this holiday so much when I was her age. 

 I love it now for better reasons, rest assured.  Since I didn't have my first boyfriend or even date until I was 24, my love for the day was never about dolling up for a romantic dinner out or finding the perfect present for a man or any of the other things we're too often told are the point of Valentine's Day.  It is for me a whole week of finding and making cards, catching up on letters, looking up recipes, deciding what to bake and which tablecoth to use, admiring the stores' displays of flowers and sweets, and marching through snow to the post office to send my stamped and stickered greetings.  I set what remains my own record my freshman year of college by mailing 44 Valentines, but even years like this one, when payday was the day after and the holiday was a more low-key affair, simply sitting down with a cake recipe and a few cards, stickers, and stamps before me was enough. 

 I mailed out Aunt Laurie's card and then realized I'd forgotten to include a frog somehow, a Valentine's Day tradition she has graciously come to accept over the years, so I created a second little card and walked back to the post office with it so it would arrive on time.  

Aunt Laurie's own card arrived Thursday and was more of her amazing paper art.  Remember the incredible scrapbook she made for Mike's and my first anniversary last April?  Lately, she has been crafting these house cards--"Cottage Cards by Laurie," she labels them, inside a heart-shaped tag that hangs from the chimneys--with windows and doors that open to reveal images, the recipients' names, and other little surprises.  

 This Valentine's Day's sweetest surprise came from my friend Tina, who is also my friend Sommer's sister.  In a big red heart-covered envelope was not only a long letter, but also recent pictures of her and her family, a handmade fabric Valentine card, and a puffy cinamon-scented fabric heart to hang.  Tina and I have shared the most heartbreaking moments over the years, so to be exchanging happy hearts still twenty years after we met is now the sweetest gift of all--and one that likely delights Sommer.  ♥  Life is such a wild ride. 

 An exchange of cards and a small carrot cake for us here Valentine's night, leftover cake the next few days, and Valentine's Day/Week has now come and gone again.  Love to you all, and here's to a happy March.  ♥

A Giveaway and Six Years of Pretty Little Rough Patches

Six-Year Blog Anniversary Giveaway  ~  Click to enlarge pic.

This month marks six years that I've been writing here.  It was only a mere six months ago, though, that I made the blog public and findable by online search engines.  I Struggle with Shyness:  A post for another day.  :)  It was especially fun and rewarding this past fall and early winter, then, to find comments from new readers in my email inbox--I have all comments emailed to me--and to notice each time another person had found the blog and hit the "Follow" button.  When I learned that big-hearted at Vicki over at 2 Bags Full would be hosting an online blog party today, right before my blogging anniversary, to express her thanks for what blogging has brought into her own life and to help other bloggers meet, I asked to be added to the virtual guest list.  Blogging, even if I've done it quietly and kind of under-the-radar for so many years, has been a sweet thing in my life too, and I share her appreciation of it.  Thank you to Vicki ♥  and welcome to everyone who's visiting here via her party.  :) 

You know how people joke about visiting someone only to have to sit through his/her slide shows of vacations, pets, and family outings?  I'm a person who is thrilled by such things.  Tell me about your best friend from elementary school, your best friend now, the first person who broke your heart, the work you do and the work you want to do, the language you'd love to learn and the lesson you need to learn, the last movie you loved and didn't want to end and the last book you hated too much to finish, the flowers that most remind you of your grandmother, the birthday cake you always bake or buy for your wife, your funniest memory of your grandfather, the dress you'll save forever because you once had a perfect day wearing it, those songs that take you back to high school, that one dog who was your Best Dog EVER, the craziest neighbors you've ever had, and the kindness a stranger showed you the day your child died.  Give me your tired, your poor, your fridges covered in magnet-held family pictures and your scrapbooks bursting open with saved mementos. . . . ♥  Where did you find the piece of driftwood shaped like a seal?!  I love it.  ♥  Is that photo you and your sister when you were kids?!  ♥  Oh!  Your dog by the fireplace Christmas morning!  Look at his FACE!  ♥  Is that sketch of the house that you told me about?  ♥  That has to be your mom's photo above your chair--You look just like her.  ♥  My seventh-grade English teacher always had us spend one class period a week writing journal entries that we would hand in to her to read.  She said that we could write about absolutely anything and that that there was really nothing she didn't think was interesting.  I remember thinking, when I heard her say that, "Well, yeah, I'm the same way."  I hadn't known it until she articulated it, so that realization stuck in my memory.  And now I live in the Age of the Internet and get to see your slide shows and hear your stories this way, and every day, I find someone--and something--else that interests me.  And I love that. 

To celebrate six years here and to thank you for following along, I'm hosting my first-ever giveaway.  Everything (but my beloved old green check tablecloth) in this post's photos will be packed-up and shipped to the winner after I draw his/her name February 1st.  I had fun shopping for all the prizes and love putting care packages together, so this has already added some fun to my own week.  ♥   

The winner will receive: 

• Real Simple magazine's hardcover book Celebrations:  Easy Entertaining for Every Occasion, a big book that's full of ideas for gifts, meals, parties, invitations, and just thoughtful ways to make "everydays" into holidays and "special" occasions even more special
• one of my favorite books, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn  ~  If you've read it, you know what a treasure it is, and if you haven't, I envy you the fact that you still have your first reading of it ahead of you.  Follow Francie as she grows from an eleven-year-old girl to a post-high school young woman.  I love this girl and her story.  
• the "love issue" of Sandra Lee's magazine, filled with recipes, tablescape and party ideas, Valentine-ey thoughts, and the most beautiful photos  ~  Her magazine is always a feast for the eyes and heart.
• a little book of 23 friendship-related stickers 
• 20 paper napkins covered in cupcakes-decorated-with-hearts
• 8 heart paper plates, also perfect for either Valentine's Day or any day
• 48 pink and red floral die-cut cupcake wrappers
• 4 packets of hot chocolate, each a different flavor
• 3 thinking-of-you-type cards with envelopes 
• 3 Valentine cards with envelopes 
• and 2 red-ink pens because, as some of you guys already know, I add red hearts to almost every piece of personal mail I send.  It's not just a "blog-thing."  ♥  :)

To see larger versions of the photos here, just click on them.  A reader mentioned the other day that it would be helpful if my blog's photos were bigger, but when I post extra-large versions of photos with this blog design/layout, their sides get cut off a little bit--and I really love this design/layout.  (I tried, Jenny!)

To enter, just leave a comment on this post--and please make sure that either your comment or profile gives me a way to contact you if you should win.  Any comment with a date of January19th-January 31st will count, and I'll randomly choose a name and announce the winner here on February 1st.  You don't need to "follow" to enter.  I hope you'll follow if you want to, though, of course.  :)

Good luck!  And a truly warm welcome to you new readers and an equally-heartfelt thank you to those who have been with me either from my very first post in 2007 or since earlier this week.  I've loved sharing the past six years here.  Keep telling your own stories.  Make time for your friends.  Finish and mail the letter you keep meaning to write.  Offer a piece of gum to the person sharing the elevator with you.  Keep putting yourself out there.  Say thank you.  And remember that even when it's rough, life is good and beautiful and worth the effort.  Ride it out.  Find the silver lining.  Go hug your cat.  ♥

xox♥, Val

Father's Day from Richard Scarry

These beleaguered-looking pigs played a big part in my childhood, as this story was one of my favorites. I was thrilled a couple weeks ago to track down the book that contained this illustration. The story it accompanies is "The Three Wishes," and this telling of it is found, it turns out, in Richard Scarry's Nursery Tales. I remember my dad reading this to me when I was a little kid, and I had wanted to find it for him for a long time. Something jarred the memory loose and made me think that it was, indeed, a Richard Scarry-illustrated book that I had been remembering, and just like that, the search was over. 

This story of the bickering husband-and-wife pigs and their three wasted wishes always made me hysterical, and these illustrations still got a laugh out of me when I reread the book this month. Look at the angry eyes of the shouting husband-pig above and the way Scarry's drawn him with the accusatory pointed hoof. :) 

And the crazed look in the pigs' eyes here as they try to wrestle the sausage off the wife-pig's real nose? That was the height of comedy to this five-year-old. I tried to get Mike to see the humor in these pages, but I seem to have been thirty-some years too late. Dad, however, should be delighted. I didn't mention in his Father's Day card that I had found it, but this book is one of the little presents I'm mailing him in his belated package tomorrow.   ♥

I Wish Her the Shire

Mom's birthday was yesterday, and our phone call left me wishing I could send her some carefree days with her beloved hobbits: Frequent tea and snack breaks, warm sunshine and flower gardens, long visits with good friends. . . .Mom has been battling Lyme Disease since last summer, and although she and Dad went out for supper and a movie last night, her tremors were quite severe throughout, making it a little less enjoyable. "I was glad I was in a dark theater!" she reported today. Another doctor appointment this morning and yet another in three weeks. It could be worse, and we all know that, but I'd take away the past six months of stress and illness for her if I could, no matter what it may be teaching all of us. I'm only human, and she's my mama: I just wish her happy days.

In the package I mailed her Tuesday, I included along with the cuddly floor-length blue gingham robe, gluten-free and dairy-free chocolate chip cookies, and other goodies, my latest salt dough ornament, a birthday gnome. :) I added a Daisy, Mom's favorite flower, to his hat, and made him a card to hold, and she oohed and ahhed over it when we talked. It was the smallest thing in her package but also what she got the biggest kick out of, as I'd expected. And that made me quite happy. 

Maybe by next January, Mom's illness will all be but a memory, and maybe it will go on for years. No one knows, of course. In the meantime, I send her hopes and prayers, cookies and tea bags, blue checkered bath robes and well-wishing gnomes. I send her love.