Shared Beauty

On the day before Thanksgiving here in the US, I want to say that I'm thankful for Good Mail from Good Friends. On Monday my mailbox had this beautiful magnet of a gardener riding a hummingbird from the fabulicious Julie ZS: The saying on the magnet is: "Gardeners live in the most beautiful places... because they make them that way." ---Joseph Joubert Thank you, Julie! It's lovely and currently has pride of place on my inspiration board. Plus it sparked a nice little "what if" discussion between J and me about how fun it would be to be able to shrink to Thumbelina size for a little while and ride on the back of a hummingbird. They'd make human fighter pilots look like wusses! Also in my mailbox was a surprise package from the superfantastic Sonji: That's me channeling Vanna to show you the gorgeous necklace Sonji made. J took the photo and it cracked me up, so I posted it, but it's a wee bit fuzzy (I typed "fizzy" at first...and y'know I think it's kind of that too!) so I took this close-up. Still have some flash glare on the pendant, but it's an old-timey photo of a woman's face. Very cool. Thank you Sonji! J liked this surprise too. His comment about the necklace was "pretty cool", which is high praise indeed from my non-gushy hubby. [grin] And I wore it out to lunch yesterday and got a compliment from the waitress. Yay Sonji! Sonji also sent a funky "shoe fetish" rubber stamp, but I don't know any way to get a good pic of that, so y'all will just have to wait until I use it in something. Oooh, bonus! After I'd written the rest of this post, but before I published it, the mailman came to my door with a big box from the luminous Laura. (I must pause a moment here to thank my mailman who is VERY thoughtful and nice to have driven up my half-mile driveway to bring me the box instead of leaving a postcard in my mailbox saying "come and get it at the P.O.!) Laura and I had worked out a trade a while back. She was interested in a small quilt called "Tree's Eye View" and in exchange she sent me a set of fuzzy, yummy wrist warmers in dazzling red: ...and a matching red fleece scarf in her signature "deconstructed" pattern, which I LOVE. I wish I could show you the whole thing, but J isn't feeling well and was taking a nap, so I had to do one of those "arms stretched out" photos and could only get this much of it in there. Isn't it great though? (And hey, do you like my blue reading glasses? One of many pairs in various styles and colors that I have scattered around the house. Those are my computer pair.) As a bonus, she also sent a wonderful, warm, fuzzy, HUGE fleece patchwork pillow. No pic of that yet, but I'll try to remember to post one soon. Thank you, Laura!! Now back to the original post... I also have to share some more photos with you. Monday night I looked out the window and we were having the most glorious sunset! We always have much more spectacular sunsets in the winter than we do in the summer here in Kentucky, but this one was a doozy even for a winter sunset. So here are three photos, taken from my front porch just minutes apart. I cropped and resized them for the web, but other than that they haven't been adjusted at all - no changes in color or contrast. This is exactly what I saw that night. the beginning full glory a last glimpse of color