Hello All.

Today is a mixed bag of stuff.

Now that the sale is over, I am trying to just get caught back up in the rest of life and took a day or two to slow down a little.

Before I catch you up I just want to thank you all for all of the kindness and encouragement that was sent my way from my last post.

Truly, your words have really meant so much.

People seem to really have a connection to turtles, or at least the quote that I shared. Several people shared that my “sign” also became a sign for them to “stick their neck out”. So good luck to all.

I did a little research and found more information and an accurate version of the quote:

turtle quotee

Also, a lovely reader, Lori, shared this beautiful quote with me. She, and I agreed, felt it was so relevant after my Bloom & Shine sale.

The Risk To Bloom: “And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful then the risk to bloom."

Thank you Lori.

So what else has been going on? My husband has a love for cheese and would love to make his own, like for a living. Since that is not happening anytime soon, for his last birthday, I gave him a cheese making class. It was a day long session and then you go back later and pick up your aged cheese. So on Sunday, we ventured out to pick up his cheese at the sheep farm where he made it.

In my mind, this sheep had quite a voice.

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Of course, we took a minute to have some gelato, yum. Oh, yeah and you can find all the info of where we went on the gelato cap.

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We didn’t do the full tour that ends in holding a baby sheep since we had our dog with us and new she couldn’t wait in the car for that full time. So, we just visited the cuties in the field.

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And, of course we had to visit this fellow as well.

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Oh, and in case you need some of this, now you know where to get it…

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We were lucky enough that it didn’t rain just long enough for us to stop and have some brews and shirley temples with dinner. Of course, we were all pretty full since we had just eaten gelato.

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On the way home we took a small detour and were able to show our girls the church where we married.

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When we got engaged my family had just moved from where I grew up and did not have a church. Hubby and I were still in school in NH, so we actually had to go “church shopping”. My Mom and I spent the day visiting churches unsuccessfully, nothing felt right. We happened upon this church that we did not know about even though it was the closest to my Mom’s house. We stopped in, just to sit for a minute. The nice man sweeping the alter took us to meet the pastor and everything fell in place. Oh, yeah and the nice man sweeping was the priest who married us!

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It was a really magical place on a lake. My parents don’t live in that area anymore so it was nice to journey back and take a trip down memory lane. The best decision I have ever or will ever make is to marry my husband.

I hope you all have a fabulous day!

Take care,

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May 18, 2011 — Laura Putnam