Sad news ...

It's been a very mixed feelings week for me. I have been so high on the great feelings coming from the CL event in Chicago, and have been working hard to get back on track with orders, and contacts and press kits and all those things. (I will post more about the event and my experience with pitching my product and all those good things later.)

Meanwhile here at home, I have spent the entire week trying to nurse our beloved pet Leopard Gecko, Pete, back to health. I came home from Chicago to find him very sick. He was actually sick before I left, but I thought he would be ok. I took him to the herp vet and they said it would be touch and go... a "guarded prognosis" but they gave him fluids and fed him a bit, gave an antibiotic and I've been tending to him hourly all week. He rallied some yesterday, but last night he began to cry. Literally, it was heart-wrenching. He would open his mouth wide and make a tiny mewing squeeky sound. Today he was just not able to keep going. I gave him his meds and about 30 minutes later I checked on him. He seemed to wait until I came in, then he just passed away.

I am so very sad, I loved that little guy more than I ever thought I could. I took care of him, as us moms always seem to do with our children's creatures. I fed him the mealworms and crickets dusted with calcium, I educated myself on how to create a comfy home for him and care for him. I had hopes that he would live a good long time as I was so tired of the sadness every couple of years from losing our hamsters.

It will be excruciating to have to tell my son. He will be home in about 30 minutes and my heart is just completely broken for him. My husband is coming home, because he knows how much Taylor loves Pete.

I'm sorry if anyone is waiting to hear from me today, I'm just going to have to give my son as much of my time as he needs instead of packing and shipping for one afternoon anyway.

In memory of our sweet little Gecko ... Here's my son with Pete when we first got him.

Goodbye Little Petey, you were a very good pet and gave my son lots of love and enjoyment. You will be very missed.

Painting Chicago Pink!

It may be St. Patty's weekend, but OH BOY! Watch out Chicago ... the ladies from MakeMinePink.com are on their way to paint your town PINK!

Twenty some of us are heading to Chicago and meeting up tomorrow where we are going to luxuriate all together in a very special place, and on Saturday we will all attend the Country Living Magazine 2008 Women Entrepreneurs Event, where our beloved Pink leader and mentor, Joyce Lucas, is featured as one of the magazine's Women Entrepreneur of the Year! I am unbelievably excited to be going there too! I can't wait to meet all the lovely ladies I've been getting to know and have become close friends with over the past two years. We are going to have SOME FUN!!

Joyce is the most deserving person ever for this acknowledgement and nod to her giving, teaching, mentoring, encouraging, loving, caring spirit. She is the heart of MakeMinePink.com and has won all of our hearts too! Join us in celebrating her creative spirit!

Not only do we get to meet, hang out, and attend this fabulous event together, there are four of us who are getting the opportunity to "Pitch Your Product" to the editorial staff of Country Living Magazine! Karen of Sweet Necessi-Teas, Sharon of C'est Chouette, Roxie of Business In THE Bag, and lil' ol me are all pitching our products for a chance to be featured in the magazine! Too exciting! I am so thrilled to be one of those four! I'm so nervous, I haven't flown in over 20 years or even taken any trips alone in the past 15 or so, but I'm more excited than nervous ... at the moment anyway.

I've been trying to perfect my "pitch" and I tried it out on my husband tonight and he said he thought it was good. I hope it is. I started too late (typical writer) trying to polish and write it and get it just right. I'm also exhausted from so many 18 hour days lately trying to fill orders, create my new product that I'm pitching ... called "PURSE`onality Bags TM! and shop and prepare for this awesome weekend. Maybe it's a good thing to be exhausted so I will sleep tonight.

Well, it's midnight, I'm operating on 3 hours sleep last night and I'm about to crash but I still have to finish packing. I have my samples ready... and I will be taking lots of photos to share on the blog next week! I promise, I'll take some pics of the new line and launch it on my website next week.

Have a fantastic weekend!!

Such Pink Sweetness!!

This is my lucky week I tell ya! Yesterday I got some really BIG news (that I'll share in the next post!) and today I have been crowned! Three times in one day! This lovely Pink Crown represents the "You Make My Day" Award. How cool is that? Oh and this lovely picture to the right was sent with my award from Janet B. of Janet's Creative Pillows. I have to tell you about her, she is the sweetest, most positive and hilarious person you could ever know. And talented too, if you've never seen her pillow designs, check out her website, and you'll find pillows like you've never seen anywhere before! She is SEW creative!

And thank you to my sweet friend MMP Gail, for picking me and my blog to honor, and who has a really sweet blog of her own called "Cup Cakes and Cute Stuff" and that name always makes my mouth water. Check out Gail's jewelry too for some more pretties to drool over! (here... I snagged one of her photos so I could entice you even more ... hope you don't mind Gail! )

And thank you also to Lisa for also sending me the "You Make My Day" award. She is another of my sweet friends and the Coffee Chat Diva from over on MMP, who also has a beautiful blog called "Pale Pink and Roses" (Yikes! I just remembered that Lisa also tagged me last month with that tell 7 weird things about yourself blog thingie ... I'll have to see if I can work that one out to post and pass on too... later, like next month!! HA! Is that weird? Can I use it in my list?!)

Ok, so, this "You Make My Day" award is not just to keep and gloat over ... (gloat! That's such a funny word - and fun to say!) So, here's the dealie ... (I took this from Janet's blog!)

The rules are as follows:
The“You Make My Day” award must be presented to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blog land. Let them know through email or by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times, and if you do, consider yourself really, really loved. So to pass it on and keep the love going.

Ok, I have run out of time, I am going to post my picks for passiong the the "You Make My Day" award in a new post because I want to have the time to post links to their sites for them too so you can visit them and make your own day brighter! I only have two so far... the rest I'll post when I get back from the fabric store!!

1. Dawn, proprietress of the lovely shop My Hydrangea Home and you will find her beautiful blog here - Hydrangea Home.

2. Ok, I don't really know this lady, I just found her blog aftere clicking on some blog links on Dawn's blog that led me to a blogger from England and then to another who then led me to this one! Isn't that what blogging is all about!?! Anyway, her blog made me very happy, in fact when I went to it the song "Come On Get Happy" by the Partridge family started playing on her playlist! I'm going to have to spend some time there reading, but I can already tell that she's a neat lady and I like her ... and the fact that she's an older mom like me! Her name is Debbie and her blog is called This Is The Life (catchy! which is why I clicked it!) Now I'll need to post to her and let her know that this crazy stranger just gave her a You Make My Day award!

3 - 10 ... Stay tuned...