The Gift Of Friendship!!

It really has been a week of being reminded how VERY blessed I am to have wonderful friends in my life. I may not get to catch up with them very often ... some I've never met in 'real life' ... but they are such an important part of my life and I'm feeling particularly blessed and grateful for that this week. :0)

One of these precious friends ... one I've never met in 'real life', but feel I've known forever ... is my gorgeous blogging buddy and OPAM partner-in-crime, Sweet Peg. Peg was amongst the first five real blogging buddies I made after I dived headlong into the blogosphere and was still learning to dog paddle. From the first few visits to Sweet Peg's blog, Happy In Quilting, I have been in AWE of just how much she achieves ... whilst working full time, doing extra book-keeping in her non-work time, attending Club Quilt AND writing her own and the Club Quilt Blogs!! PHEW! I still haven't worked out how she fits it all in ... I'm pretty sure she doesn't sleep! Very quickly, I nick-named her "SuperStitcher" cos she just seems to get so much FINISHED while I muddle around and seem to make more starts than finishes. I want to be Sweet Peg when I grow up!! :0)

Our friendship has grown even more since she joined me as co-host of OPAM two and a bit years ago ... bet she didn't know what she was in for when she said "Yes"! Tee! Hee! Hee! We've enjoyed chatting back and forth via blogs and email, as well as a few phone chats ... quite LENGTHY phone chats. :0) So when my postie left me a parcel on Thursday that had Sweet Peg's return address on it, I was excited!

Don't you just LOVE unexpected parcels! :0) And brown paper packages just HAVE to have lovely things in them, don't they ... or Julie Andrews would have something to say about it I'm sure! Tee! Hee! Hee! Inside I found ...

OOOOOHHH!! The results of Sweet Peg's "SuperStitching"!! :0) Peg knows I'm too impatient to even TRY hexies ... and the centre of each of those hexie flowers has some pretty stitching in it, too. Sweet Peg must have known that I hadn't yet got around to making a cover for my hard-working Huskie, so she sent me a beautiful one to adorn dear Huskie with!! :0)

Ta Da! Just right! That pretty blue ties in beautifully with my blue walls in the sewing room. Oops! Perhaps I should have tidied my sewing area a bit before taking a pic! :0) Ah well ... you can see that my 'studio' space isn't one of those magazine-shoot-neat areas ... it's more a creative-chaos-zone! Tee! Hee! Hee! And I love spending time in there cos in this one little corner alone, there are LOTS of lovely gifties, cards and reminders of the friends I've been blessed with ... including a couple of lovely gifties from Sweet Peg now! :0)

THANK YOU SWEET PEG!!!

I love my new machine cover and it will help remind me to count the blessings of good friends whenever I'm in there sewing! :0)

Adding to my friendship blessings this week was a chance to toodle off down the 'hill' to catch up with my Bestest-Buddy-Since-We-Were-Nine Lynette. We hadn't caught up for about five months due to her work commitments ... EEK! We were both having play-date withdrawal symptoms! :0) So when she was finally able to arrange an RDO that matched my crazy calendar, we hurried up and marked it in ... in PEN! Tee! Hee! Hee!

After a bit of a catch up chat over a cuppa at her place, we headed off to lunch at "The Nook" ... sorry ... not sure what suburb in Bris it's in ... Lynette drives and I chat so I have no idea where we went. :0) The people who own "The Nook" used to run the coffee shop at our fave Gardenway destination, but on our last visit, we found they'd moved on. So when Lynette found out where they'd moved on TO ... we followed them! :0) That's not as stalker-ish as it sounds! Tee! Hee! Hee!

Here's Lynette enjoying a refreshing glass of apple, elderflower and lime drink ... I had the same and it was delicious!! Oh look ... Lynette's drink matches her pretty top! :0) She really is a very good sport about humouring her mad-blogger-friend by posing for photos with her lunches ... though she did comment that my blogging buddies will think that all she does is eat and drink! :0) This is what I had for lunch ...

A Turkish Lamb burger ... YUMMO!!! There's beetroot mayonnaise, rocket (which I picked off! YUCK!!) a DELICIOUS lamb pattie, grilled haloumi cheese, with a side serve of sweet potato chippies. SIGH!!! It was heavenly!!!! :0) I also had something sinfully delicious for desert, but was too busy gobbling it to take a pic. :0)

Now, after comparing diaries, Lynette and I worked out that it will probably be a few months before we get to catch up again, so she decided to give me my birthday giftie a couple of weeks early ... OOOOHHH!! Gifties are fun! Hmm ... HOW old am I?!?!? Tee! Hee! Hee!

OOOHH!! A Depression Glass juicer to add to my collection!! Lynette, who also collects Depression Glass, knows that I particularly like to add 'kitcheny' items to my little collection, since it is displayed on my shabby hutch in the kitchen.

THANK YOU LYNETTE!!!

 Oh I have been so spoilt this week!! And as I said at the start, it has reminded me yet again of how very blessed I am to have such wonderful friends around me ... not just because they give me gifties (though that is always fun! Tee! Hee! Hee!) But because they know me well enough to know when I will love something and take the time to find/make/send it to me. I hope I'm as much of a blessing to  my gorgeous friends as they are to me!!! :0)

Right ... well ... I'm now off to do a bit of stitching. Once again the weather is cooler, overcast and rainy, so I think curling up with some stitching in front of Midsomer Murders is exactly the right way to spend the day. OPAMers ... have you sent your January and February finishes through to Sweet Peg or me?? If not you'd better be quick before we start the blog-hop ready for the double-whammy prize draw! :0) Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!
KRIS