A teacup swap received!

Okay, here it is. Susanne in Australia sent me the sweetest pink-a-licious teacup swap ever!
It arrived in this pretty box...........

And when I opened the box, this beautiful totebag was inside!!! I gasped. Really!! I love pink and roses and she made such a beautiful bag. I nearly cried.

But then I peeked in the bag......and actually everything was wrapped when it came but I didn't take pictures then as I was too anxious to see everything she had sent. Look inside that bag.........

It was filled with more pink goodies and here they are..........

First, I opened the custom made teapot card. Then I unwrapped the needlecase (you can see it opened below). And then I unwrapped that teeny-tiny teapot pincushion!! And then came the teacup! The felt sweets that she made on the saucer look almost good enough to eat! And the last little goodie was a thimble from where she lives in Western Australia. :-)

Here's a close-up of the teacup pincushion...............

I loved every single thing she made and as I mentioned yesterday....she spoiled me but I am so glad she did. Now you can see why I said that what I sent her just wasn't as fine as what she sent me. Soooooo, when my mother and I were out shopping, I found a little something that just said "Susanne needs this" and after I embellish it a bit, it will go off to her in the mail as a thank you for such a lovely swap. Some of you have e-mailed and wondered about this swap. It was not a swap I organized but is one that was hosted on the Yahoo group......... CrazyAboutPinCushions. Just click on it and you can join, too. It's a fun group with lots of inspiration for pincushions of all shapes, sizes and designs. :-)

I mentioned yesterday that I would tell you about another little "hidden treasure" that my mother and I visited while she was here. Actually, it's not really hidden, but it's kind of small and unexpected. Many of you are probably familiar with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Well, the brothers who began the clinic grew up in the little town of LeSueur, MN just a few miles south of Henderson. The family home sits in the heart of downtown LeSueur.........

It is such a petite little house and a very interesting style. We arrived too late to tour the house so I just took a photo but one day when I'm in LeSueur on errands, I'm going to visit it and will share some more photos.
If you double-click on the photo below, you can read the history behind the house and the family.

There's an old saying............"You learn something new everyday". Well, that was certainly true today and I have to share what I learned because I can't believe I didn't already figure this out. It has to do with blog comments. I didn't know that you can have your blog comments sent to your e-mail address. I always wondered if there was some easier way than how I was doing it. Whenever I would reply to comments it was time consuming because I'd click on the commenter's profile, then open my e-mail, then type the comment and then sometimes go back to the comment because I didn't remember to copy it so I can remember what I'm replying to.....it was cumbersome. Well, today, I got lucky and learned something new. I hadn't been over to visit Chookyblue's blog lately so I stopped in to see what she had been doing (her photos are always beautiful). I happened to notice on the left sidebar that she had a new topic in her "How to-blog bits" titled "get your comments e-mailed to you". I clicked on it, followed her how-to steps and like magic, my comments began coming to my e-mail address! Oh, my gosh, it makes it sooooo much easier to reply to your comments. I wish there was a way to have it be retroactive to old comments so that I could reply to some of the many comments that you have all left for me. I have amazed myself that I have learned as much as I have in this blogging journey but I am constantly amazed at how much I do not know. It took me two years to figure out the easy way to answer comments. I wonder what other great things I'm missing in this blogging world but whatever they are, they will just be opportunities to "learn something new every day!" :-)

Hope you'll leave me a comment so I can answer it right away. :-) Have a great day!!

Sandi