Greetings Everyone!! It was a whirlwind of a weekend. I wrapped up today (Sunday) at a dinner with friends followed by an early evening at home. I was very happy to get home by 7:30 where I had intended to make several phone calls that needed to be returned. In any case, I decided it was a true to life jammie night so I wrapped myself in jammies and sat in front of a huge roaring fire just soaking in its warmth and its mesmerizing strokes of fire. What a fabulous way to end a hectic but fun weekend. I had not done anything like this for myself in a while and realized that I really needed to do more of it. It was fabulous. Let this be a lesson to me - do it more often as should all of us!
Saturday morning proved to be quite hectic with an ATC swap followed by a napkin exchange and followed by two classes throughout the day - both of which where long classes. By mid morning I had worked my way over to the West Seattle Christian Church where services for Olive Holstein would be held. Olive, as many of you already know, was a beloved friend to so many of us at the shop. She has now made her way to heaven and now serving as one of our local angels. This proved to be very true as the weekend evolved and as you will see below. The services were very nice and I was incredibly overwhelmed when the minister, Alan Gardner, made mention of Friends and Company in his eulogy as one of the places that Olive liked best in the Junction to just hang out. He described it, not as a business, but rather as a meeting spot for the community. I knew then that I had accomplished what I set out to do over 11 years ago and that was to have a place that people loved and wanted to be in. I know that Friends and Company is home to many and I just love that little piece of knowledge. Let's keep that going for a long time to come!!
Well Sunday rolled around and we planned on conducting the Provo Craft Cricut drawing for eligible passport members at 2:00 pm. I am just so totally grateful that there were people to witness what happened at this drawing. A woman by the name of "Jennifer" was asked to draw a name to identify our Cricut winner. Jennifer was a first time customer to Friends so she had no idea about what was really going on. She drew a name and if you can guess who's name she drew would almost make you a physic. You guessed it - she drew Olive's name. I was so blown away that I found my mouth wide open and a chill just running down my spine. I truly believe it was Olive's way of letting us know that she is in a good space but still around and we should not forget it! None of us in the room who knew Olive could believe what had just happened. It was a totally electrifying experience - one that I have heard others talk about but one that I have never experienced first hand. The Cricut will, of course, go into Olive's estate.
Olive was also the winner to the cupcake contest coming in at 69 cupcakes in the year 2008 using her passport. She was short 3 mini cupcakes to receive the maximum of 72 for the year but would have received all 72 had she not decided that she had other "things" to do. We decided to award the Coffee To a Tea award of one dozen mini cupcakes for 2008 to Judy Burton whose passport represented 62 cupcakes received for the year (No one else came forward with that many). Now remember, the passports only cost $12.00 so do the math and see what an incredible deal both of these ladies experienced in 2008. Jodi, from Coffee To A Tea, and I both hope you enjoy these delicious cupcakes Judy!!
Kits Morgan won a FREE class in 2009 for attending 52 classes in 2008. This is in addition to the two FREE classes that Kits already received in 2008. We changed the Passport Program for 2009 in that a FREE class will be awarded to anyone for every 12 classes attended (A $20.00 value). Another great reason to put classes on your radar screen for 2009. We have some of the best instructors with the best classes in town so do check them out.
I was not going to post this until the am but since it is AM as in 1:40 here it is. I'm off now to blow some zzzzzz's and continue to think about how I am going to explain and let everyone know about my BIG announcement. I go to bed each night with it in mind and truly hope that I can pass it on as soon as I can. I am simply losing way too much sleep. Can't wait. Stay tuned...... Hugs to All - Doris
Sources tell me that Doris will be hosting a team building, card making class for the crew of The Deadliest Catch which can be seen in early March.
Posted by: Karen Lockhart | January 14, 2009 at 06:45 PM