A Sweet Week (give or take a few extra days)

I want to share a few sweet moments that happened last week. 

First:  Just over a year ago, I virtually met a lady named Barbara on flickr.  She and I have the same camera and we both shared photos in the same flickr group dedicated to photos taken by the Nikon D40x.  Via her flickr profile, I followed Barbara to her blog and learned even more about her and her love of writing and photography.  She and I have developed a good e-friendship using flickr, facebook, her blog, and even just email.  🙂 You are reading this today due to her encouragement to give blogging a go.  Click here to experience Barbara’s way of drawing you into her life.  The whole point of this bit of background info leads up to how this last week started (if you allow me to include June 24th as part of last week) with a very sweet moment.   I had the honor of getting to meet my virtual friend in person, face to face, for lunch.  She was on her way home to spend the weekend with her high school girlfriends and visit her parents. And since that is very near where I work, we met for lunch at the Ashland House Restaurant and enjoyed each other’s company for an hour or so. We chatted like two friends who haven’t seen each other for a while.  I know if we lived closer, I would be sharing time with her more often.  I hope to see her again soon.

Debbie and Barbara

The other sweet moment I want to share with you is how Simon and I spent our 10th Wedding Anniversary on Tuesday, June 28th.    We agreed no gifts, we are just taking the day off and spending it together.  So when I arrive home from work, late as usual, on Monday night, he gives me a beautiful bouquet of red roses and peonies.  Bad Simon!  But I couldn’t really fuss since they were beautiful.  Tuesday morning arrives and we talk about flying to New Orleans for lunch (since I work for an airline that is pretty easy to do on such short notice if there are empty seats); however, we opt to drive to Brenham, TX instead for the day and not deal with the hassle of an airport.  As I am getting ready, he brings me 2 cards and a small box (oh, he is really in trouble now; especially since I lived up to the deal we made and didn’t spend any money on even a card for him!!)  One funny and one sappy card and a beautiful pendant in the little box! Once again, I couldn’t get too mad, because the pendant was a cute little pavé dog paw on a silver chain. He said something about it being from Penny since she wasn’t here to help us celebrate.  By then the tears were flowing.  You see, when I first met Simon, I told him that my Jack Russell, Penny had to approve of him before I would consider dating him. Well, needless to say, he won over Penny’s heart in a few visits and mine soon after.  Penny died just over a year ago and he knows I still miss her a lot even though we still have 3 members of the 4 Paw Gang to keep us company and covered in dog hair.  Pretty sweet husband, eh? But the truly sweetest moment of the day in the most literal way was:

Our empty cups after sampling Blue Bell Ice Cream at the end of the tour.

We toured the Blue Bell Ice Cream Factory in Brenham after we had lunch.  At the end of the tour we had our choice of a scoop of one of 16 flavors.  Yummm!  If you haven’t tried Blue Bell Ice Cream it is definitely worth a trip to a state that sells it.   Come on down for a visit!    On our way home we took a slight detour to Independence, TX so Si could visit a gun store and I had the opportunity to view this beautiful field while waiting for him.

Hay Field in Independence, TX

Not a bad way to spend the day with your hubby and a pretty sweet week, don’t you think?