My first attempt

I subscribe to a wonderful "virtual" publication called "Fibre and Stitch" magazine. (http://www.fibreandstitch.com/) As part of the subscription you get to be part of a listserv of wonderfully creative and artistic people. I don't actually feel worthy to be among them, but I view this list as my preparation for "the afterlife"--my life after I retire. (My son will be through college, I'll retire and I'll magically become more creative. Yeah, that's it...)

It happened to be my friend, Susan's, birthday last week, and though I was going through one of the hardest days of my adult life and didn't wish her a happy birthday until nearly bed time, she was very kind and gracious about my senior moment. I've been working on this present for her for the past few weeks, but I'm satin-stitchily challenged and was fighting with it for quite a while. All it took was one post to these generous and helpful list members and I had enough suggestions to be able to pull it off. (Well, pretty much. It's not all that pretty when examined closely but we just won't go there, alright?) It was fun to make, mostly because of the terrific directions (which are among the free projects on their website).

Anyway, Susan's a gardener so she needed a padfolio to make her seed lists in the spring (and her grocery lists the rest of the year) and this was a fun thing to make for someone who's been so good to me for over 20 years now.

Happy (belated) birthday, Susan. Thanks for being my friend, my sense of reason when I'm being a headless chicken, the second-mother to my child, a wonderful person to share this middle-aged no-man's-land with, and one of the best people I know.

And thank you to the generous people on the listserv who helped me finish the project.