Gifts from Stitching Friends & another tagging

Two friends from two of my stitching groups sent me lovely gifts this month. At first I have thought that a couple of missing exchange items had found their way but not yet. What I treat it was to find these lovely things in my mail box. Christmas seems to have arrived early for me. These wonderful thoughtful gifts and the friends who sent them touched my heart.

I have been on a stash diet for a while and although I really have no major stash needs it feels so good to be able to fondle some new things and ponder how I will be using them. In the first photo are 3 skeins of lovely fiber and a huge piece of rose linen. In the second photo there are 3 wonderful charts, oops there was also a yummy bar of chocolate (not pictured), a perfect piece of Christmas fabric for finishing, marbleized perforated paper, an adorable wooden garland of children/elfs, a book mark, a collection of scrap book holiday motifs (these are so cute) and a lovely card. The items are lovely but the gesture is even sweeter & that is priceless. Another friend printed and sent me a freebie that for some odd reason my pc could not open. So this Thanksgiving one of the things I am most thankful for is the wonderful women that I have met through my internet stitching groups. Oceans, and unbelieveable distances seperate many of us but the internet and the love of a shared hobby make the globe we live on seem so much smaller.
The photo tagging things didn't work for me so I thought I just do another 6 obscure things & since so many people have already been tagged I am not going to pass it on this time. I hope that doesn't offend anyone but if you have not been tagged consider it done! So here I go again

1. Since I was a little I have always had penpals. One long time penpal was from Nova Scotia, Canada & another was in Germany. Now I have email pals.

2. When in college I took a trip to meet with my Canada friend, Lorraine who was studing in France. We backpacked in Europe one summer, staying in hostels, using a student Eurorail pass until our money ran out. What a wonderful fun trip it was!

3. My total lack of direction got us lost in many interesting places overseas.

4. I am tall, 5'11" & when I was younger loved to wear heels. Many of the hostel bed were made for shorter people.

5. In Italy (while lost in Milan) I met and became friends with a young German woman because both she & I were about a foot taller all of the Italian women and many of the men. She spent an entire day showing us around Milan. It was wondeful. She was thrilled that she finally found another woman she didn't have to look down to hold a conversation & I am part German among other thing.

6. Lorraine and I found out that there are sections of France that leggy college girls wearing shorts should not be walking in, even in the middle of the day. Once again my total lack of direction and endless curosity had gotten us lost. This time we were chased a few blocks by a couple of yelling madams (sort of glad I didn't understand what they were saying). We were bad for business and distraction to the businessmen. They wanted us gone and fast. Lorraine speaks French and understood most of what was said. She turned beet red and refused to interpret. She was offended that they thought she was an American & a hooker. I did not help the situation because I was too busy laughing. The thought of these petite sophicated french women in the oldest profession in the world feeling threathen by me just tickled me something fierce.

If you have not been tagged & enjoyed reading this.... guess what? Consider yourself tagged!