One World One Heart prizes!

This seems to be my lucky year!   I won these beautiful earrings from Jackie at Scruff's Corner in the United Kingdom.  They were beautifully packaged in a sheer little bag, with a sweet card and pretty ribbon.    I am frustrated with my lack of a decent camera (while mine is being repaired) because the earrings are SO much prettier than my photo shows.    I love shades of blue, because I am (at heart) a water person.   My recent trip to the Caribbean was almost overwhelming with its shades of blue and green and turquoise and aqua and a million other blue-y colors I have no name for.   Jackie's earrings are a little reminder of one of those blues that stretch as far as you can see.   They have a nice 'swing' to them for that carefree, girly sensation and I feel so lucky to win them!

I also won these wonderful d4 earrings, in their clever handmade box, from Cookies and Lasers in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.    I think they're really cool looking, but Shama-lama Mama  explained to me that they are much more than that!   As she pointed out in an email to me, "Those are special dice from the game Dungeons and Dragons that my brother and I used to play when we were teens and pre-teens... You have to have 4, six, 10, and 20 sided dice (or "die" I guess) and so it's kind of a whimsical pair of earrings for geek types! We used to go to a friends' basement and play until literally 3 or 4 o clock in the morning, but my mom always said, "Well, as long as I know where you are and you aren't getting into trouble!" Little did she know we were getting massacred by orcs and wizards! lol"     Now that I realize that the earrings could potentially protect me from orcs and wizards, I am happier than ever to have them!

The very same mail delivery brought me this wonderful notecard from "Kay" in Washington,  at A Crafty Arab, who also has a lovely shop.  Somehow, despite her serious concerns about family and friends in Libya, she made time to send me this wonderful handmade card.   Her thoughtful notation on the back of the card let me know that the caption reads, "hello."   Her blog offers glimpses into new points of view;  I love the way bloggers help me see places and hear voices I might not otherwise have known about.

But that's not all!   I also received these fabulous "One Sheet Wonder" note cards from Gail's Card Cafe.   Gail let me choose my own colors and I told her that I like colors that remind me of the ocean -- I wish the photo could do these cards justice because they are beautiful, a swirl of blues and sparkles.    A perfect assortment, the prettiest papers, embellished with ribbons and glitter and rhinestones.   I will enjoy using them!

And now the sad news - grab a hankie.    I know I was really lucky in the One World One Heart blogging giveaway this year!    NOT so lucky in my Mardi Gras preparations, though.    I ordered our King Cake way back in February, we always have it delivered on the Friday before Mardi Gras.    Worse yet, once I got the email saying it had been sent with the Fed Ex tracking number, I felt safe to tell my granddaughter we could expect it -- but it did not come!   Fed Ex says they never received the package.    The bakery said that things are "crazy" and that they would try to send out a replacement.   I hope we'll still get the cake before Tuesday but we sure won't get it today, so it's a big disappointment.   Red beans and rice all cooked up but no cake to go with it.    I guess I'll put on my beautiful new earrings, sit down with my beautiful new note cards, and see if I can still feel sorry for myself, but it sure won't be easy after thinking about how lucky I am!

Follow up on the King Cake -- after several emails and phone calls back and forth with the New Orleans bakery, including my claim that my granddaughter would cry herself to sleep if we didn't get our cake this year, they are going to send the cake out to arrive on Mardi Gras, the last day of the Carnival season.   This is not ideal from my point of view, since Tuesday is a work and school night for the kids (and not a vacation day as it is in New Orleans), but it's the best they could do since they don't ship on Saturday and the cake does have some distance to go.     I'm looking forward to that purple, gold and green colored sugar and hope to get photos of all the gaudy goodness.