My New Toy

My sweetie has been ill and I did not expect a birthday gift from him, as he has been unable to get out of the house, except for medical appointments, for a couple of months.  But today a box arrived, and it turned out that it was a birthday gift for me.  It seems he had given money to my son and one of his daughters to get together and come up with a gift for me, and they came up with a doozie:

If you don't recognize it, don't feel bad -- it's not something you see very often today.  It is a "lap steel guitar" made by Fender probably in the 1950s.  I have never played one before, but thanks to the internet there is lots of information available.  I tuned it based on instructions I found online and experimented with it, strumming some chords and singing along, but plan to purchase an instruction book.  At my "advanced" age, I don't want to waste time trying to learn it on my own, as I did with other instruments I learned to play at an earlier age (much earlier, actually).

Wasn't this a wonderful surprise?

Joanie

A wonderful surprise

I arrived home a couple of days ago and there was a package on my porch addressed to me. I hadn't ordered anything recently and could not imagine who might have sent it. The return address said "Jackson and Perkins." I sometimes order plants from them -- could I have ordered and forgotten? It's true my memory isn't as great as that of a younger person. But I was certain that I had not placed any recent orders.

I brought the package into the house and opened it, and it contained a beautiful basket of yellow and coral miniature roses. Inside there was a tag that said "just because you're you" but there was NO NAME!!! The following photo is from the Jackson and Person website, but I assure you the actual roses are even more lovely than this photo. After a couple of days, one of my stepdaughters "fessed up" to sending it. Wasn't that a sweet thing to do? Life has given us some challenges recently but this unexpected gift lifted my spirits, and continues to do so each time I look at it. When the blooms fade, I plan to plant it outdoors in hopes to perpetuate the joy of the beautiful roses and the memory of an unexpected gift.

Joanie