Garden Party for Mother's Day - Shop Hop at MMP

Garden Party - Shop Hop - Blog Hop - Mother's Day Celebrations

It is my pleasure to invite all to join with me and all my PINK friends at Make Mine Pink to celebrate in our First Annual Mother's Day Garden Party Shop Hop and Blog Hop. We will be celebrating all the Mothers in your life~ whether it is your Grandmother, your Mother, your Step Mother, Adoptive Mother, a friends Mother, your Aunt, Sister or Daughter ~ and Yourself for that matter!

It's quite obvious that my mother is always at the heart of all that I do and all that I am. I was blessed to have the sweetest, smartest, most beautiful and humble and loving mother any girl could ever dream of and even though she was taken from my life far too early, she is still with me every moment, her very essence lives in me and my children. So of course, celebrating Mother's Day is a very special thing for me to do ... and sharing it with you makes it even sweeter!

What a wonderful idea it is for us all to come together to celebrate the change of seasons, to find beautiful gifts to give to our loved ones and to ourselves, to welcome in the sunshine and flowers of Spring, to share tea and recipes and stories and memories! I hope you will visit and enjoy the special treats I'll have to offer over the next couple of weeks leading up to Mother's Day.

Here's a peek at what we have in store for you , here on Mama's Pocketbook Blog, and throughout the Blog Hop, and at MakeMinePink.com, and at all the lovely shops participating in the Shop Hop!

Thursday, April 24 ~ I'll share some favorite recipes

Monday, April 28~ A Mother's Day Gift Guide

Thursday, May 1 ~ May Day - A Celebration of Flowers and May Baskets

Monday, May 5 ~A Special Spring Giveaway!!

Thursday, May 8 thru Sunday, May 11 ~ Mothers Day Events, sharing memories, anecdotes, pictures and life's little lessons.

Be sure to bookmark my blog and please leave comments! I love comments!! And be sure to visit the shops participating in the Shop Hop. I'll be highlighting some of the lovely goodies and events being offered around our MMP Network that you won't want to miss.

Please sign up for my Mama's Pocketbook Newsletter too, if you haven't already!

XOXO

Memories and Inspiration

I took this photo of my daughter this past weekend and was struck by how much she looked like my mother in the photo I use on the website and here on my blog. So I decided to set the photos side by side to compare and one thing led to another and I got creative (as usual!) and this is what I ended up with. I really love it.

I'm not very good at digital scrapbooking and am just beginning to dabble in it, but it could easily become an obsession. Especially since it never occured to me until I was messing about with these photos that I could have a picture of my mother and me and my daughter together even though that was never possible in "real life".

Yes, I'm sure I could spend all day manipulating pictures and coming up with new ways to decorate a page with them. This is why I have shyed away from scrapbooking because something else would have to give in order for me to have time to play around with all I could do in this medium. I think I'll have to get a maid and an assistant so I can do more fun stuff like this!!

Ok, back to sewing! I'll post more soon!

Amy Butler Sweet Life Sale - Last 3 bags!

I only have three of Amy Butler's first issue Sweet Life bags left in stock, so I am offering them at a great price to the first three lucky customer's to snag this deal .... yep... first come, first served.

Go to my website Mama' s Pocketbook - all the details are there on the front page!

I'd write more about this, but my daughter just called and I have to go and pick her up. Mom's taxi on duty! Happy Shopping!! XOXO, Dianne

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!!