Showered By Sweeties!!

OK! Grab a cuppa cos this is a post where I play 'catch up' with some WONDERFUL things that have happened to me in the last little while that lead to me telling you I've been Showered by Sweeties! No, not the lolly/candy type of sweetie (though there WERE some of those involved - Mmmmmmm ... Caramel!! Tee! Hee! Hee!) the type of Sweeties I'm talking about are those I've met since discovering blogland and they're listed as my Blogging Buddies in the sidebar!! Let me tell you just how blessed I've been!!

Firstly, I came home yesterday to discover a box on my front step. (OK, not ticking, good start!!) Hmmm ... my birthday isn't til March ... I haven't been indulging my addiction to Kerryanne's glorious folk art recently ... I hadn't signed up for any new swaps ... no return address, but Australian stamps ... postmark too faint to read ... where's DCI Tom Barnaby when you need him! Tee! Hee! Hee! So, without the TV detective's assistance to solve the mystery I had to do things the old fashioned way - I opened the box!! :0) And I found ...

Ooooohhh!! Lots of goodies in my box! But still no clue as to who it's from. So I opened the card (which was a gorgeous country style one featuring a teddy bear!) One of those blogging buddies, Joy, had sent me a surprise!! Now, Joy decided that since my Stitchers Angel parcel from last year went astray somewhere between Budapest and Toowoomba (my partner did the right thing, her postal service wasn't as reliable as she was!!) she would send me what she called 'a little something'. LITTLE??! Look what was in that box.


A cute T-towel that lists all of the reasons that Teddy Bears make the best friends - see why I'm obsessed with bears!! A GORGEOUS little zipper bag featuring a Bronwyn Hayes stitchery (from our 'chats' Joy knows I LOOOOOOVE Bronwyn's stitcheries and made a quilt last year featuring nine of them!), some YUMMY special caramels (Joy knows I'm a caramel girl!!), the cutest bee pencil and a little patchwork bucket/bag that missed this photo for some reason - oops! Here it is ...


Isn't it cute!! I've seen lots of these popping up on people's blogs and now I have my very own!! And here's a close up of the zipper bag ...


Joy has used variegated red embroidery thread which has come up BEAUTIFULLY!! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Joy!! I feel VERY spoilt!!! See? What a SWEETIE!!

THEN ... I was given an award by another of my blogging buddies, Kerryanne. Now, I also received this award from another blogging buddy, Judy (my Noah's Ark BOM partner in crime ... I mean STITCHING! Tee! Hee! Hee!) And it is a lovely award that touched my heart - it is a Friendship Award. Now, I'm one of those people who believes the saying that, "The best collectibles are friends" and I try very hard to be a good friend, so to have two ladies I admire a lot tell me that they thought that of me was lovely. OK, so maybe I got a LITTLE teary, too!! Tee! Hee! Hee! So ... onto the award...

The meaning of this award:

This blog invests and believes in Proximity- nearness in space, time and relationships.
These blogs are exceedingly charming.
These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends .
They are not interested in prizes for self-aggrandizement!
Our hope is that when the ribbon of these prizes are cut ,even more friendships are propagated.
Please give more attention to these writers! (Not actually sure I can cope with more attention than May Britt and I are already getting with our challenge! Tee! Hee! Hee!)

And I'm supposed to pass this award on to 8 fellow bloggers, to include the above text in their blog.

This is the tough bit, cos I have made so many fun friends and blogging buddies in the not-quite-a-year that I've been blogging!! The first two buddies I made were Kerryanne and Linda, so right back at ya, Kerryanne and Linda gets a double up, too. Judy and I have been encouraging each other in our Noah's Ark BOM, Stina and I helped each other be strong and not unwrap our SSCS gifties early, Peg is Super Stitcher (no lycra! Tee! Hee! Hee!) who amazes me with what she achieves, Joy not only sends gorgeous surprise gifties, but sends fun emails, Rosey is always good for a giggle, May Britt and I enjoyed email chats even before we decided to co-host our challenge ... OH NO!! I've listed eight, but have soooooooo many more blogging buddies!!! But then, left to my own devices, I'd list EVERYONE on my sidebar, so perhaps I should stop now!! Thanks gals for your friendship, support, shared giggles and encouragement - in short, your incredible FRIENDSHIP which has nothing to do with geographical proximity!!

OK, enough mushy stuff!! I also managed to stand still long enough to get tagged - TWICE!! Certainly doubling up this week! The first tag was from Birdhouse Linda (that's not her blog name, it's just how I identify her in my list of about 7 Linda/Lynda's that I know!!) She tagged me to show the fourth photo in my fourth photo folder. It was my Dancing Pics folder, from my Bellydancing performances and get togethers. (bet you're glad number four wasn't me in full costume! Tee! Hee! Hee!) The photo was ...


This is another of my Lynda's that I've collected! Tee! Hee! Hee! This was at a coffee celebrating Lynda's birthday the year before last. Look at my RED hair!! Tee! Hee! Hee! Perhaps I'll go that way again when I get bored next!!

And the second tag was from Rosey at Agapanthas and Goldsworthy (Your blog is hard to spell, Rosey!!) She tagged me to show the fifth photo in the fifth folder, which was a lot of moderately badly lit photos taken at my beloved Geek Boy's brother's wedding. Number five is the happy couple.


As I said, the lighting was pretty bad. Our camera doesn't have a great flash and it was a very overcast afternoon in the shade of some big gum trees on the Brisbane river. Lovely setting, lousy photographic light!

PHEW!! OK, I think I've covered everything I was supposed to catch up with!! Thank you again to all my "Sweeties" who "Showered" me in friendship this week! And now, I think I've earned a cup of tea before bed. Hope all you challenge girls are happily stitching away - don't forget to email me or May Britt when you finish a WISP. Til next time - Bear Hugs!

CHEERS!
KRIS