Christmas Gift, Birthday Gift and a Surprise Gift!

On Monday my friends Erika, Kendra and Candy came over to watch the latest episode of Downton Abbey. This has become our Monday night ritual and I enjoy the time I have to spend with these girls. This week they provided all the food for our dinner since it was just a few days after my birthday. Kendra made Mexican chicken and Candy brought rice to go along with it and Erika made a yummy birthday cake.

As you may recall, at Christmas my friends and I had a Favorite Things party in which we all came home with lots of lip balm. Candy's husband was specking at a memorial service the night of our party and she couldn't find a sitter for her four munchkins and so she was unable to join us. Well, if you haven't guessed it yet, she brought us her gifts  that she had intended to bring the night of our party. We each got a Sharpie pen (love those), a bar of Dove Soap (the cucumber/green tea scent - so nice) and a coupon for a free Chick-fil-A sandwich - all good choices!

Before the night was out, Candy and Kendra gave me a birthday gift. It was a red kitchen towel with a ruffle at the bottom and a hounds tooth elephant embroidered on it. It is super cute. Sadly, I do not have a picture of it with me at this time. I would say I will post one later, but chances are I won't think about it and I wouldn't want you to be waiting by your computer all night long for nothing.

Then on Wednesday at the end of the work day, the store for my favorite cycling team (Garmin-Sharp) tweeted that they had some new banner bags ready. What's a banner bag you ask. Well, fear not because I'm going to tell you. At races throughout the year, the team has banners here there and yonder and at the end of the season the banners are recycled by being turned into tote bags - no two bags are alike. I saw these in the shop when they had them back in the fall and unfortunately never got around to ordering one. So, when they sent out the tweet with a photo of the new bag, which happened to have the face of one of my favorite riders plastered across it, I tweeted back, "Aw, snap! Love em!" and made a mental note to check the store and order one. By the time I got home from work they had sent me a tweet that said "Email us and we'll send you one!" Y'all, I about fell out I was so excited. Garmin-Sharp seriously has the nicest people working for them! You may recall I got a free jersey last year. I immediately emailed and then sent them a big thank you on Twitter. They are so awesome.

So, it's been quite a fun week for the gifts! if I do say so myself. Now, if I could only figure out how to keep this going the rest of the year. Hmmm....