Gratitude, Good Friends, Giveaways And A Granddaughter

Yesterday was a good day [mostly] First thing, Liz messaged me to say Rosie had a temperature and was going to stay home from Nursery [there's been sickness going round, as often happens when you get lots of small children all together] But she clearly brightened up later, and it was lovely to get a picture of her with her crayons. I am grateful for the technology which means I can see my grandchild's progress like this even though she is miles away. She does concentrate so intently on things - Liz and Steph were just the same at that age. 
I had a coffee date at 10am at our local Garden Centre [which is next to Hobbycraft] I went on my bike - grateful that my knee is so much better and pedalling is not the pain it was in January.

I was meeting up with Mary, who writes the blogs Trundling Through Life and Frugally Challenged. She had emailed me to say that she'd be passing this way en route to a holiday in Cornwall, and she suggested we meet for coffee. It was utterly brilliant!
We'd not met in person before, but discovered we had heaps in common - Mary had lived and worked in Leicester years ago so we talked about places we'd been. And we also found that we enjoy many of the same blogs. If you ever get the chance to meet up with a 'blogfriend', do take it. I have yet to be disappointed at such a get-together - and friendships have become much deeper. I am grateful for all the people who have become important to me since I started writing Tracing Rainbows. When I passed the 1 Million Hits a couple of months back, I said I ought to do a giveaway. And I completely forgot. Sorry! But over at Small Moments last week, ElizabethD gave away a lovely address book. It reminded me that I had a pretty one which I had no use for.

It has space for 300 addresses [with space for landline, mobile and fax numbers] and beautiful butterflies on the cover. It is ring-bound, so opens nice and flat [always useful when you are trying to copy out an address]
I am grateful for all my friends all round the country world, and believe it is good to keep in touch. If you'd like to have this book to list your friends, please leave a comment on this post before Friday evening, and I will put the names in a hat, and then send the book to the winner.
I have so much to be grateful for - thank you, dear readers, I number you among my blessings!