One of my favs

Remember me?!

It's been a while, but I'm still here.

This week, Mama Kat has some good writing prompts. I chose prompt #5: List ten favorite things about one of your favorite people.

See if you can guess which favorite person I am writing to.

#1. You are the first person to notice when I'm having a bad day and do your best to make me happier.

#2. You are a role model for your peers in many, many ways.

#3. Your heart is true, full of compassion especially for people less fortunate than us.

#4. You do everything with 100% of yourself.

#5. You have eye lashes longer than anyone I've ever seen.

#6. You are so stinkin' smart!

#7. You are always honest.

#8. You took your baptism very seriously and truly understood the importance of it.

#9. You are the kind of friend everyone wants to have.

#10. You never give up.

Have you figured it out yet?

It's my 10 year old son, Lucas.

Love you, Bud!

It drives him NUTS

I love Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop! Here's this week's prompt:

Something you do that drives your significant other CRAZY.

That's easy.

BLOGGING.

I guess I haven't adequately explained to him how much I enjoy all aspects of it.

Obviously the act of writing and creatively expressing myself are appealing to me. I guess it's kind of like having a diary or journal as a kid. Blogging is a way to get those feelings out.

The whole reason I started blogging was to document our lives. Honestly, I cannot wait to turn my blog into a book or books. I hope my kids will look back through it and recall all the good memories they had growing up.

And who knew I'd love creating cute headers and little blog buttons. It's like coloring for adults! And those plug-ins and widgets? I thrive on figuring all of those things out.

But when I try to explain all of those things to Alex, he would still rather me spend my time doing other things.

How about you? Does your spouse support your blogging? How do you handle it?

My own boutique

Prompt #3.) I often daydream about…

Having my own store.

Bags by Jill has been in my basement for 4 years now.

It's usually a big mess because personal stuff gets mixed in with the business stuff. And I have a small space to work in.

I try my best to keep things organized, but it's not easy. At all.

A revamped ribbon rack has helped a ton!

But what I picture in my head is...

A wall of ribbons - about 10 times bigger than what I have now.

That room is filled with fabrics, large tables, cutting boards, and cutting tools. The fabrics would be on bolts just like in fabric stores, because this is the easiest way to store them while easily cut them too.

Next to that room would be a room with a nice, big embroidery machine and all the thread & tools needed for embroidering.

The sewing would all take place in a room next to the embroidery room. I imagine 3 machines with nicely organized, easy to access thread, rulers, fabric pencils, scissors and more.

These 3 rooms would all have an iron & ironing board in them. (Nobody ever told me ironing was such a big part of sewing.) I wouldn't necessarily need 3 different rooms - 1 huge room would work too.

But there would also be a front room for the customers. This is were I would display large fabric & ribbon swatches. I would also have many products ready to sell, shown on shelves & display units. Like a small boutique with a handful of employees.

I would also need an office. We can't forget about the accounting/bookkeeping part of it!

Can you picture it too? Anyone what to give me a few $100,000 to make my dream come true? Anyone? Anyone?

I girl can dream, right?

She left me speechless

This week, Mama Kat offered 5 awesome prompts. I could think of good stories for most of these:

1.) Write about a time a friend left you speechless.
2.) What would it take for you to pick up and move?
3.) A memorable neighbor.
4.) Write a poem about that time you were left behind.
5.) A song with significance.

So I'm going to start from the top today and save the rest to use later on.

Write about a time a friend left you speechless.

Immediately, one moment comes to mind....

I was in college, so I was probably 19 years old.

A group of us were out one night. There were maybe 5 or 6 of us.

We had been drinking (but I have no clue who got us our beer). Being the sneaky girls that we were, we poured our beer into empty McDonald's cups.

We ended up at a bowling alley. This was not something we normally did, but we had a blast. I was not the DD and was feeling pretty tipsy.

Two of us went to the bathroom, because teen age girls can't seem to ever go to the bathroom alone, right?

As we were finishing up and washing our hands, my friend sat up on the counter. She said, "I have to tell you something."

I was smiling & giggling from drinking the contents of my McDonald's cup, and I naively said, "Okay. What?"

"I had an abortion."

~~~ buzz kill~~~

I was speechless. I thought I knew this person but evidently I did not.

"My boyfriend & I went out of town last month & had it done. I wanted to tell you, but I knew I wouldn't have enough nerve unless we were drinking," she said.

Still, I stood in silence. All I could do was give her a hug.

I can't remember what was said next or even how we awkwardly left the restroom to rejoin our friends. I was so blown away with her news!

We never mentioned it again, and our relationship was never the same.

I have still, to this day, never told another person.

Remember my The "A" word post? I wonder how my friend feels about her decision now, 15 years later.