"You're going to get a kick out of this."

said Sherie as she handed me an envelope last night at church. I opened it to find a card inside which began..........

Perri,

You don't know me, but boy, do I feel like I know you! :) I'm a faithful blog reader/lurker and have been since that infamous post about homeschooling. I laughed until I cried and have been reading ever since

I'm a homeschooling mom of four and I live in Maine. My husband is being transferred to Hong Kong and we will be moving there in the fall. Rest assured, I will still be reading from the other side of he world!

I can't wait to read and use my cookbook! It will be going overseas with me!

Sincerely,
Deanne *********

This note caused several things to happen. First and foremost ---- I did get a kick out of getting it.

Next, I had to wonder why would Sherie open my mail? Then I looked at the envelope and my name was right at the bottom where the post office runs it through some machine, so my name was pretty well obliterated by a series of dark black lines.....but then --the very first word of the note was Perri.

It's not as if there are dozens of Perri's running around our church or town.....or for that matter, probably our state, so more than likely, Sherie probably knew that mail was for me and she read it anyway! On the other hand, she probably knew I would show it to her - I mean, my gosh, I'm "showing" it to everyone right now. There are a lot of probabilities to take into consideration. But to think just yesterday we had sledgehammered in unison and by last night she had stooped to federal offenses. How quickly we can fall...

This got me to thinking about the mail -- don't ask why, my mind doesn't work in a normal fashion. Anyway, I was thinking about my sister in law, Kathy. She used to live in another state and we would write letters (yes, this was a long time ago before we had email) at least a couple of times a week. We went through a phase of writing things on the outside of the envelope like "CONFIDENTIAL TEST RESULTS ENCLOSED" or "CONTACT US TODAY TO SCHEDULE YOUR NEXT APPOINTMENT" and putting our return address in the corner, only with the heading of something along the lines of VD Clinic. Now, depending on your age, you are either going to know what that means or I'll have to translate it for you. VD in 1980's = STD in 2000. We just let our imaginations run wild and I'm sure both of our mailmen looked at us rather strangly for good reason for a long time after we got through this stage.

My, how this post has wandered, much like my car in the story I was telling Jacob last night as he helped me before bed. It involves me, as a 16 year old, chasing a car down a steep hill, yelling stop - like that was going to help - watching helplessly as it flew off an embankment, traveling another hundred yards or so, taking out shrubbery as it went, before coming to rest with the back wheels in a tree, and the front wheels straddling a ditch from which the fire department had to come and "rescue" it.

I don't know why I volunteer these stories to him. I'm sure I will hear about them again when he is a young driver.

As long as I'm sharing my happy mail with you.... Angie brought me an email Sunday about a recipe that Ryan had put in the cookbook for potato candy (an old family favorite and we are an old family). It read,

"Hi, I don't know who Ryan *** is but I could just hug the man. (here's where I laughed) Grandma always made potato candy at Christmas time, but after she passed away no one could find her recipe. It's not the best thing in the world, but it was always something she did. After seeing the recipe she probably never had it written down, it was just in her head. Anyway, tell Ryan thanks. It really means something to me to have it.

I'm wrapping up this long post now and if YOU want a cookbook, you better get on it and order one. They are going fast. 602 recipes in one great hard back book. It just makes me happy when things happen like they did yesterday. Ashley Duncan came in to tell me her mom had sold 72 of them at work. 72 and the woman doesn't even go to our church. THAT'S how awesome our cookbook is and how WORTHY the cause is for the profits.

As for the original point of this long, convoluted post........

Deanne, you have been reading my blog since the very first post....and never commented ONCE!?! Do you realize that is over 2 years? I'd say you have obtained major lurker status. So come on out and say "Hi." Truly, I'm pretty friendly - even if you read my mail. Your cookbook will be mailed this morning. I hope you enjoy Hong Kong. What an adventure ~~ I can't imagine living anywhere but here. Thank you for taking the time to write instead of just ordering the book. I really DID get a kick out of it!