Happy Sunday !

I recently bought a pottery mug from a seller on ebay. She had made the most adorable mug with colors inspired by the Amanita Muscaria mushroom.

When I opened the box I found that she had also included a tiny pottery mushroom as a gift. After taking the mug out, I inspected it as I do everything, especially something I will use for food or drink. On the inside there was a little place that I was not sure about, so I emailed her and showed her a photo and asked if she had seen it and in her opinion was it completely sealed and "drink safe". She was very kind, apologized that I was concerned and said that she always inspects every inch to make sure. She said the glaze may be thinner, but totally sealed. I was good with that. She had not over charged for the handmade mug in the beginning and quite honestly, I thought it might look good with a bunch of flowers in it. A little bit later, I got another message from her stating she would send another if I would like, a different shape but same color design. Before I could see that message, she had already sent another message and said she supposed she should have asked if I wanted a refund instead. What ??? I responded and told her I hoped I had not sounded like I was highly upset, because I wasn't and I had just wanted to check with her first. Before I barely got that message sent, she sent me ANOTHER message and said she had made a decision and had refunded my paypal !

Now... that is so opposite from what you normally see these days, or I think it was. First off, I had decided I was good with using it and nothing more needed to be done. I was wishing she had not refunded it so fast, but I mean, how do you complain about that??! 😆 Still.... I messaged her back and told her that I had only meant to get her opinion, I wasn't upset and that I would be sending the money back to her. She then said she does her pottery because she loves doing it and not for the money and it was all good. She says she always believes it comes back to her down the road.

I am determined to send her the money and I have her address from the box that she shipped in. I don't really know how to reverse the paypal refund, so I decided I would send it back to her physically and I also decided to paint a tiny piece of Amanita Muscaria mushroom art to send with it. This is a very tiny 4X4 piece of canvas board. My intent was to make it look like a mother mushroom with a baby mushroom snuggled up to it. I thought it came out pretty good for what it was and that fact that I am notoriously abstract in my painting talent. LOL !!! So I will initial it today and seal it and in the next couple of days I will send it off to her with the re-payment for my mug. I have never taken advantage of anyone and I am not going to start now. I have already had coffee out of my mug and I am happy with it. There is no way that I am not paying for it.

The mug in general is a little heavier than I prefer to use, but that is not an issue with the product itself and I am determined to endure that anyway because I love the mug so much. Life, life, life.....

Speaking of life, today is 9-11, the anniversary date of the terrorist taking down the twin towers in New York, flying a plane into the pentagon and attempting to use a 4th plane for more destruction before being stopped by it's passengers whose bravery and sacrifice saved the lives of unknown others where the plane was intended to go. In past I have chosen for myself not to celebrate persay. By that, I don't mean I would ever forget it and I acknowledge it was a terrible, terrible thing. We are not use to that sort of thing here (although we do have few internal terrorist types of our own).... so it was particularly devastating.

The summer of 2011 was the year I moved half a country away from my family to Texas on a mid-life adventure. I had only been there 2 months when this happened and it felt weird and a little uncomfortable with me being so far away from the embrace and support of my family. Now when I say that, I don't mean I was emotionally crushed in a way that I felt like I couldn't cope or anything, it just made me feel a little isolated. I did not have a TV at the time as I had left my old one behind and was going to buy a new one after the move. I had not done that yet and later I was a little bit glad I had not as it kept me from seeing the event over and over and over daily.

This morning though I was going to chose to do something a little different. I follow my local fire and police departments on my facebook and the same for the next town over. The fire department and I thought the police department posted that they would be ringing bells and sounding sirens from their vehicles that would be randomly located around the county at 8:46 AM this morning for 1 minute. Even though I didn't go to bed till 4 this morning, I decided to set my alarm and go out on the porch at that time and observe the moment, thinking that I would at least hear one siren during that time. So I got up, brushed my hair, went out on the porch to make sure my little American flag was out there and I waited. At 8:46 I listened.... and listened and held my little flag out and tried to hear something. Was that a faintly distance sound of a bell? ... was that a very faint sound of a siren? My brain was trying so hard to hear something, but alas.... nothing that I could hear. I probably misunderstood what was said, but still, in that moment, I was standing on my little porch, flag in hand, remembering the day and not only all those that were lost, but all those that risked their own lives and ran in to help.

We can't really stop some of these things from happening, but one thing is for sure, when they do, there will always be others that will rush in to help. My heart is overwhelmed when I think of all who did.

I took a photo of the flag I was holding.

I came to create this post about 2 hours ago, but I got distracted by an email my brother sends out on Sundays to our family that he calls "Blast From The Past" where he shows 3 or 4 random photos from our family's past, notes the birthdays in the coming week if there are any and shares any other info he wants too. Other family members respond from time to time and share other info and sends their love to all of the rest of us. I wanted to grab a past photo of us as kids at the beach to respond with, but got into the external drive with a bajillion family photos and got lost in them ! It took me a while to get back out to my task here.

I normally go to visit Mom on Sundays with very few exceptions, but today she is on the way for a week at the beach with my brother and his family, so I have the whole day to myself. I wonder what I will do with it .....hmmmmmmmm

I hope you are all doing well and that life is treating you good.

Love you !

Jacey