I won a spoon from the wonderful Lori McDaniel Anderson

I won an incredibly beautiful, hand hammered and embellished vintage spoon from

  Lori McDaniel Anderson --you can read all about it on her blog, which I have linked to through her name, above. 

She is known for her book, Bead Soup 

and for her extraordinarily popular Bead Soup Blog Parties! I have been a participant in at least five. 

I remember one when Lori herself sent me beads as I could not afford to participate otherwise. 

I loved that one the most! It shows exactly what sort of remarkable person Lori is.

Now,

 this spoon which I won today, has a hand hammered inscription, as you can see, created by her dear friend.

the talented Maire Dodd (see her blog here). It bears the words "inner peace".

 It also comes bound with beautiful rose quartz, which is the stone of love.

You can read more about it on Lori's blogs.

I cannot express how moved and grateful I am to have, surrounding me, terrific friends who are wonderful and supportive, like Lori. She and I go way back, at this point. She was the only person who came to me, when my son Robert died, and offered to share the contact information (funeral home, etc.) with our mutual friends on Facebook. That was a great source of consolation to me. It was very kind and brave of her to approach me and offer to do this for me.

And although I rarely discuss my own hidden illnesses (yes, I have more than one!), I am totally proud to now stand up and be counted among the group known as "the spoonies". 

Thank you dear Lori--you make my world a brighter place! You have a special gift and ability to bring love and light to everyone. You have always shared this amazing ability so generously with your friends. There are far too many of us who consider ourselves your friends to count, however we all love you VERY very very much!!! 

jean! xox

If you want to read more about Lori, 

here are all the places you can reach her and see why she is so special:

Pretty Things

and

LemonSugarHoldtheLyme

Lori says:

"I also opened a Facebook page just for Lemon Sugar Hold the Lyme, 

which can be found at

https://www.facebook.com/LemonSugarLyme

This blog [Pretty Things] will begin again its journey through books, beads, Zack, vintage goodies, and funny things. I'm not saying there won't be a sad post from time to time, but I'd like to make this place happy, and even the Lyme blog happy. I hope that it will grow, with your help, and become a place where people of like minds can commiserate, help each other, laugh, share stories and successes, and boost each other up. 

No more being alone. 

There's a place to go, and it's 

Lemon, Sugar, Hold the Lyme."