So Good To Be Back

It is so good to have the time to do a short blog post. Things have just been crazy. We are now with a wonderful sales agency in Los Angeles, Bassman-Blaine. We had our first sales event on One Kings Lane, which was crazy, exhausting but fun. As of today we are doing the Las Vegas show. Our wholesale website is finally finished. All of our Elf's have quit so we are in over drive getting all of our orders out. It has been an amazing year and I feel so blessed that I can wake up each day and do something that I love.

I do hope all of you have had a great weekend and your week is off to a great start.

Blessings,

We Are Ready for Summer...

I love summer, the days are longer and it’s a great rejuvenation time. If I’m lucky my husband and I will take a quick trip to the beach where we can just relax and do nothing. Summer reminds me of bright colors as well as nautical colors, red, white and blue. We wanted to change things up a bit and add some fun nautical pillows which are great for summer.

The winner of our number pillow giveaway is Alicia from Time Worn Style. Thank you to all of you who posted your acts of kindness.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Acts of Kindness And A Giveaway...

I really want to thank everyone for the sincere posts regarding the awful tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico. We experience the sadness of this event daily.

Each day we are all bombarded with sad news events that occur all over the world. When my daughter was small my husband and I made it a point at dinner to have each person at the table tell what was good about their day. There is so much negativity that we hoped it would help all of us to see the positive aspects of the day. I also remind myself to show an act of kindness each day. Believe me, there are some days that I feel so stretched that I am not feeling kind. But even the smallest act of kindness can impact someone else’s life and that can be so rewarding.

I would love to hear from you regarding the last act of kindness that you received. I would also like to do a giveaway as we try to do one each month and I do think that I missed May. So leave a post and if you put a little note on your blog you will get a double entry.

We just finished a new pillow slip that is done in our grain sack fabric. It is our French number pillow slip so we hope that you will leave a post. We will have the drawing on June 18th.

Wishing you positive feelings,

Is That The Smell of Oil?

In each of our communities we have events that happen, whether it’s flooding, tornadoes, and hurricanes, huge snow storms and even earth quakes but we learn to deal with these natural disasters. They are never easy and often times cause great hardship but we dig in, help our neighbors and life continues.

Our community has faced huge challenges such as hurricane Katrina in 2005. Many here on the Gulf Coast lost family, friends, homes and business not to mention many of our historical landmarks. Our gulf coast looked like a war zone and to this day there are still remnants of that terrible event.

Now we are faced with another disaster. The enormous oil spill that threatens all of the communities along the Gulf of Mexico. Our white sand beaches will be riddled with tar balls. The marine life such as our beautiful dolphins who swim in schools right off our beaches will be harmed. We live in an area where shrimp fishing is one of our industries as well as tourism and now those will be impacted.

Just the other day, you could actually smell oil in the air and we now see fish washed onto shore filled with oil. We know our beautiful Gulf of Mexico will be impacted for years to come as we don’t know the extent of this horrific disaster. The people on the gulf coast are resilient, we worked hard to clean up after Katrina, but this disaster will take years and years to reverse itself. We all ask, what about our wildlife and marine life, how do we save them?

I am so saddened by this that I just had to share. Natural disasters are out of our control but disasters such as this one should be controlled.

Blessings,

I Hope You Dance...

This past weekend my husband and I decided to escape to the beach, where we could just relax and enjoy the white sand beaches and watch the Dolphins early in the morning. We have our favorite hotel which just happens to have our favorite restaurant so we basically don’t leave the hotel for the entire weekend. There is a wonderful piano lounge where you can sit and look out over the Gulf of Mexico and can enjoy an after dinner drink.

After our dinner Saturday night we stopped to have a quick drink and much to our surprise there was quite a crowd. What stood out in the crowd was a very thin gentleman in his late 80’s with white suspenders and a white bow tie. He immediately took a table and proceeded to change shoes. He obviously comes quite often as the staff greeted him with affection. He now put on his black and white spats, which were in pristine condition. From the time that he arrived and had his spats on he became a dancing machine. It was obvious that his favorite dance was the Jitter-bug and definitely had all the right moves. He would go to different tables and ask the older women for a dance. As he finished each dance he would glide across the floor and return the lady to her seat.

It was like being transported to a different era. It really made me think about how often my husband and I dance and why we don’t make it a point to even slow dance once in awhile at home. The phrase that kept going through my head as I watch this smooth older man with spats and suspenders was from Mark Twain, "Dance like nobody's watching; love like you've never been hurt. Sing like nobody's listening; live like it's heaven on earth." And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance, I hope you dance.

I hope your week is filled with sunshine,

We Are Off To Sweden...

We are once again packing our pillows for a long trip. This time our pillows are going to Sweden. We are thrilled to soon have our pillows in the wonderful shop Country by Mail. Several years ago I book marked this wonderful site as a great shopping experience for Nordic merchandise. I do hope you will stop by and take a look at all the gorgeous items.

I also want to tip my hat to all of the wonderful blogger's out there who are continuously coming up with amazing blog posts and photos. I must admit, I do struggle with finding interesting material to post, so I hope you will all bear with me. My head has been buried in work and unless I post about the qualities of burlap, I don’t think I have many exciting things to share with you except for my excitement that Petit Coterie will be available soon at Country by Mail.

I would also like to thank so many of you for your kind thoughts and prayers for my husband. He is doing so well that I have to hold him back from doing too much. So a huge thanks to all of you! You are the BEST!!!




Many blessings to all of you this week!

Easter Blessings and The Winner Is...

I have been a bit reflective this week, thinking of all the blessings that I receive each day. I normally don’t use my blog as a personal journal but with Easter here I have to say that I relied on my faith this week to see my husband through heart surgery. Very unexpected as he is always the one telling me that I should be taking vitamins and of course stop eating junk food. Faith get's us through the most difficult and stressful times as well as making us take stock on how truly blessed we are.

The winner of our burlap King slip is Julie, from Being Ruby. I want to thank each of you for your wonderful comments and for participating in our giveaway. We really love doing giveaways as you may have noticed. It is our way of saying thank you for visiting our blog and becoming one of our blogging friends.

Happy Easter to each of you and we wish you many blessing.