Taking Another Step Forward

The local United Church was going to hold a fund raiser they decided to call Hats & Hostas.  There is a  man in this village that grows over 100 different kinds of hostas, and he said that visitors could come and view his garden.  He would sit in the shade and play his keyboard and various local artists would sit in the garden and paint.  There would be a lovely tea held in the church hall, and the public could go there either before or after visiting the garden. 

I was asked if I'd like to sit in the garden and paint.  I thought they had to be kidding.  I live in a village full of artists, but I'm certainly don't consider myself to be one of them.  I have been taking painting classes for numerous years though, and my instructor encouraged me to take part.  No one else in the class would accept this challenge though. 

My first question was, "Will there be members of the local arts guild involved in this project?"  The answer was no. I felt somewhat better about that, as I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable working among them. I mean, I'm just not at that level, and I had no wish to totally embarrass myself. 

Then someone asked me if I had a hat, as you were supposed to wear one while sitting among the hostas.  The event was called, "Hats & Hostas" after all.  Well, hey, I have a hat!  I have a hat that is so grand, I'll likely never get a place to wear it.  I mean, where could I ever wear this thing?  If I wore it to a wedding, I'd outshine the bride!  So, I said I'd do it.  Nobody would ever notice what I was painting as they would all be so fascinated with the hat, they wouldn't be looking at what I was doing.  I decided to do it.

The event took place this past Saturday.  It was great fun actually.  It was very peaceful sitting among the hostas, painting hostas (of course).  I was working in watercolour, and since I didn't want to have to sit around waiting for paint to dry all afternoon, I got 3 underway before the event started.  I thought it would be more interesting for the people who came early in the day  not to find us all with blank paper.  My  instructor also thought that was a good idea and got hers started ahead of time too.
Mostly, I think the people were more interested in the hostas than in us, but we each had a few people comment on what we were doing.  One lady noticed I was using frisket, and said she always had difficulty with that.  The variegated hosta with the white around the edge required me to use that though, as the lines are too thin for me to have been sure I could preserve them any other way.  Since I was working on more than one painting at a time, none of them are anywhere near finished yet. 

It was an entirely new experience for me, and I think I've taken a step forward by doing this.  Would I do it again?  Sure, if someone had enough confidence in me to ask.

Pleasant Surprises are in the Stars for Me

There must be something special in the way the stars are arranged lately. Something strange is going on around here.

Remember I told you, in May that my next door neighbour brought me her glass pot and one of her blooming tea balls?  I invited an old friend over to enjoy the experience and quickly ordered my own blooming

teas from China.  They have now arrived safely, and I also now have my own
glass teapot and am ready to start sharing this experience with 16 more
people.

Anyway, that was just the first incident of a sudden pleasant surprise. There have been many more since then.

Friday one of my neighbours called to say she was going to Kemptville to
pick up this weeks specials.  While in the grocery store, she found this display of miniature roses that
were just being marked down. She started loading her cart with them.  There
were a couple of larger pots that were not being marked down, but she liked
the colour of one of them too, as it was an unusual shade of purple she had
never seen before, and there was just one so she grabbed it too.  Then she
picked up a pretty pink one and said that one was for me and she was buying it because I'm a good friend. 

Then we were in the meat department as she wanted some kabobs that were on sale.  They weren't on the shelf, so she asked about them.  The clerk went and fetched a box, but they were souvlaki as opposed to kabobs.  She wasn't interested in them but I sure was.  There were four in a package for just $2.79.  The clerk went back and got what she wanted, and I grabbed the 2 package per customer limit on the ones that were originally brought out.  My friend bought six packages of the ones she wanted, and then decided to get two of the other ones as well.  When we got home she took them out of her bag and plopped them into mine.  She said she bought them for me since there was that 2 per person limit.  We put our groceries away and I invited her for lunch.  I paid her for the meat, which she wasn't expecting, but I did accept the gift of the rose.  It's now planted out under my kitchen window and I sure hope it lives through the current heat spell.

Recently a local church held a Fashion Show and Tea, and I was one of the models. Yesterday I went to Doree's Habit, with plans to spend the $20 gift certificate I was given for having done the job.  That was totally unexpected too, since I was already able to enjoy the tea party without

paying the $10 admittance just for having taken part in the show.  I looked around the shop and  found this cute little black hat that turned out to be the an even swap for the gift certificate.

Last month a cyber buddy of mine finally took up geocaching after listening to my stories for the past several years. He wrote about his first geocaching experience, and blamed me for the whole thing.  Since then he seems to have become hooked on these little adventures, and this morning I discovered he had gifted me a full year's Premium Membership at geocaching.com . This was totally out of the blue, and a great surprise, since I think about upgrading my membership every year, but have never done it.

All this got me thinking and I realized that within the past week I have also received fresh lettuce when I walked by the home of friend who had just picked some from her garden. Another friend had been cleaning out her closet and was taking some things to the Salvation Army, but she saved a couple of red and purple garments for me to use in my Red Hatter outings. And yesterday my daughter-in-law brought me some rhubarb from the cottage. I had not managed to get any rhubarb this year, until now, so that was greatly appreciated.   

Businesses are getting in on this gifting thing this week too.  Last week I received a nice mug from Harper Collins just for "liking" them on Facebook and today Kashi sent me a new product. It's soft baked bar in an apple strawberry flavour. They also sent a $2 off coupon so I could by some more, or try the blackberry ones. 

I don't know what's going on, but I'm starting to really enjoy all these pleasant surprises.

A Blooming Good Time

I love social media.  It brings people together in many different ways.

Today I was on Facebook and a neighbour had posted a picture of Blooming Tea. I had never heard of it before, but the pretty flowers in her glass teapot looked so lovely, I wrote under the picture, "Oooooh. I have to get some of those!"

About a minute later, just as I located them on E-bay, the doorbell rang, and there she was, holding a package full of these little dried up balls of tea, and a glass teapot.  She handed me one of these balls, and told me she didn't know which one it was, so I was to take a picture for her so she could see.  That's when I understood that she was actually giving me one.  Not only was she giving me one of her tea balls, but she had also brought over her glass teapot, so I could watch it bloom. I was absolutely thrilled and I told her I was in the process of trying to figure out which E-bay dealer to order from.  There were so many choices! 

I narrowed it down to those that didn't charge shipping and then looked for someone with a good satisfaction record. My neighbour had told me how much it had cost her, but admitted that someone else had done the actual ordering for her.  In the end I got a better price than she did with someone who had made over 50 sales and had a 99.9% satisfaction rating.  Now I just have to wait as the package will probably take a month to get here.  It's coming from China, after all, and even things that come from the United States take 3 weeks to arrive.

I had never seen one of these tea balls open before, and decided I needed company to help celebrate this great event. I called a long time friend who I had not seen for quite a while and asked if she was busy. She wasn't, so I told her I had something to share, and wondered if she would come over. She was here with 15 minutes and I put the kettle on.  While that was boiling, I put some blueberry squares on plates, for us to enjoy with the tea. The glass teapot, with the little round tea ball sat in the middle of the table. I asked her if she knew what it was. She didn't.  Then I started to pour the water into the pot, and pretty soon the tea ball started to unfold and reveal it's treasures.  We watched in amazement. 

How on earth do they do that.  The tea balls are apparently wrapped by hand, and I cannot imagine how it's done.  The results are stunning.  There was at least 3 different coloured flowers inside this particular ball.   I poured the tea, and it was surprisingly good.  The instructions told me I could add water 3 times, but not to drink the tea after it was 12 hours old.  It did say that the flowers could be kept in the water for 3 to 5 days, just for visual enjoyment though.  Since the teapot was borrowed, I found a clear glass vase, and transferred the flowers into it so I could wash and return the teapot. 

I had a lovely visit.  My friend really enjoyed the experience. She thought it was too bad her mother wasn't there to see that. I told her I'd have my own supply of these marvelous treasures in about a month, and she could come back and bring her mom and we'd do it again. 

Just from this one picture I saw on Facebook this morning, I got the gift of a tea ball, the loan of a teapot, a visit from an old friend, a great learning experience, a lovely cup of tea, a flower to enjoy for a few days, and I made my first ever purchase on E-Bay, using funds I had earned doing surveys.  That's quite a treat. I can hardly wait for my shipment to arrive. I intend to share each one with a special friend, and give at least one of them away, just as my lovely neighbour did. 

Without the social media of Facebook, I would not have had such a lovely day.