Wednesday 13 August 2008

The Gift of Friends



The Gift Of Friends

There are days when
bubbling from us comes
the innocent child within,
who giggles at the little things
and wears a silly grin.

There are days when
melancholy comes to
visit for a while;
the mind feels tired,
the body weak;
we have no strength to smile.

There are days when
joy abundant
grabs a hold of you and me;
wraps us up in all it's splendor,
lifts us up and sets us free.

There are days when
sorrow wraps us
in its cloak of grief and fear,
'till our hearts ache to the breaking,
'till our eyes can't shed a tear.

There are days when
love bestows us
with its wonderment and light;
with its beauty and its mystery,
its power and its might.

And there are days when
life rewards us
and seems to make amends
by granting us a marvelous gift,
the precious gift of Friends.

~By by Karin Schaefer



Friendship can be something that's very difficult to describe. They say Eskimo's have a hundred different ways to say the word Snow. The English language is not quite that bad, and while we may not have a hundred different words for the same thing, we do have vast ways of differentiating the meanings of certain words. I think we call them adjectives. Take the word friend for instance . . .

Close friend. Best friend. Childhood friend. Intimate friend. Trusted friend. Beloved friend. Blogging friend. Kindred spirit friend. So many ways to say the same thing . . . F-R-I-E-N-D .



I've often heard it said that friends are family you get to choose for yourself. We can't pick our family. We get the one's we are given. I've been really lucky on both counts. I have a wonderful family and wonderful friends. Our friends can be as diverse and as infinite as the adjectives we choose to describe them. The friends we choose, reflect the choices we make in life . . .



I was thrilled, honored and humbled yesterday by a gift from a wonderful friend of mine, once invisible and now real, as we have finally been able meet . . . Miss Tracy of Pink Pearl . Tracy chose to bestow upon me The Wylde Woman Award! This very beautiful award, an expression of the special threads of relationship and sisterhood connecting women, was created by the artist Tammy Vitale of Women, Art, Life: Weaving it All Together. I was gobsmacked to say the least that she would choose to honor me in such a way. The purpose of this award is : To send love and acknowledgment to women who brighten your day, teach you new things, and live their lives fully with generosity and joy.

Like any award, it comes with rules and obligations:

1. You can give it to one or one hundred or any number in between - it’s up to you. Make sure you link to their site in your post.

2. Link back to Tammy's blog: Women, Art, Life: Weaving it All Together (so Tammy can go visit all these wonderful women and see where, and who, the award has traveled to).



I'd really like to give it to all of you. My goodness . . . you . . . my invisible friends . . . touch me every day, in large and small ways. Your comments, your lovely e-mails that you send . . . honors such as this . . . you can never know how much they mean to me. I prayed about it long and hard yesterday, and the same name kept coming back to me . . . and so, I have chosen to pass this award on to a very special lady that has touched me in a particular way. She shares her gentle and loving spirit with us so very often on her blog and she is so generous with her love and praise for others. From the very first time I visited her page, it felt like a long and wonderful visit with a close and much loved friend. I have felt her joy at being alive and her great love for her family and friends and she touches my heart in many, many ways.

Lura of Grammy's News . . . this one's for you! Enjoy it, you Wylde Woman! (It's not often that you get to give someone such a lovely gift on your own birthday! Thanks Tracy for allowing me this honor!)



And now, because it is my birthday I'd like to give you something else! Yes, my Birthday Giveaway winner has been picked! I couldn't believe it when I saw that I had had 92 comments on that post! How wonderful!!! I used a random number generator to pick one for me and it came up with the number 62. Linda of Linda's World , it's YOU!!! How wonderful! My lovely package will be winging it's way across the ocean to you real soon. I hope that you enjoy receiving it as much as I have enjoyed giving it!

And, because it is my birthday, I am going to indulge myself in one of my most favourite of all breakfasts! (and because I'm so nice, I'm going to share it with all of you as well!)



*Cinnamon Roll Toast*
Serves 1

These are the basic ingredients for one serving, but as you will see, it is very easily multiplied to serve as many as you wish. Never has something so simple tasted sooo good! You won't believe it, but . . . this tastes just like a warm cinnamon roll! Whenever we have a child to stay here overnight this is what I make them for breakfast and they love it and of course, I sometimes use it to feed the child in me!

2 slices bread (white, wheat, or my personal favourite . . . raisin)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter, softened
1/2 cup icing sugar, sifted
1/2 tablespoon water
few drops of vanilla extract

Mix together the cinnamon and the butter until well combined. Use this mixture to butter your slices of bread on both sides. Heat a large sized skillet over medium high heat and then add your slices of bread. Toast well on both sides. Remove from the skillet and keep warm while you make the frosting.

Whisk together the icing sugar, water and vanilla to make a soft drizzable icing. Drizzle it haphazardly over the top of your warm cinnamon toast. Dig in and enjoy!!!

26 comments:

  1. Your cinnamon toast sounds yummy. I love all those sweet peas. They are gorgeous.
    Hugs Mary.

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  2. happy happy happy birthday sis!
    may you enjoy many many many more to come!
    lots of love, cindy

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  3. Happy Birthday to you dear friend I hope you have a lovely day. Love Joan.
    http://journals.aol.co.uk/jaymact1/JoansMusings/en

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  4. Have a lovely day Marie, you deserve that great breakfast.

    ((((((HUG)))))) Chris.

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  5. Hi Marie
    Happy birthday and congratulations on the award! I love visiting you each day. I always am blessed by your words and tempted by your recipes.
    Hope you have a wonderful birthday my dear friend.
    Hugs, Rhondi

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  6. Happy Birthday, Marie.
    Enjoy your day and know that you are a sweet and special person.
    I'm going to make the cinnamon toast for my sweethearts when they wake up.. teenagers!

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  7. Yum!! looks delish! Hope you have a very happy B-day!!!
    Blessings, Karen

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  8. Hapy Birthday Marie! Congratulations on your award, you so deserve it! OMG the french toqast is outstanding! This is the way I'm gonna make frech toast from now on! I hope you have a wonderful birthday full of love and friends!

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  9. yea for your birthday! hope its everything you want it to be-enjoy it!

    yea for lura-she totally deserves that award! she is awesome.

    yea for a new recipe-it looks yum!

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  10. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR MARIE!!!

    Wishes for a tasty birthday full of love and sunshine!

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  11. Happy, happy birthday to you! May your year be blessed with happiness. Love the post and that recipe . . . . to die for! Much love - Raquel XO

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  12. Happy, Happy Birthday, dear Marie! Your birthday breakfast is delicious...perfect for a birthday! And you are so welcome for the award...the embodiment of this award is so you! Congrats to Lura on you passing this one on to her :o) So glad we got to chat...Enjoy your special day, my dear friend ((BIG BIRTHDAY HUGS))

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  13. Happy Birthday! I've got to make that toast. I'm simply going to die if I don't eat it.

    I hope you're having a wonderful birthday! And congratulations on your award. I think that's my favorite I've seen so forward. I do think women have a special bond and network of love and support for each other. And you are the biggest supporter I've seen! You have unconditional love and encouragement for everyone you meet! You're a wonderful woman and I can't wait until everyone else is able to meet you!

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  14. HAPPY BIRTHDAY greetings from Arizona!! Hope you have a wonderful day!

    Thanks again for the recipe....what a great combination of ingredients.

    Judy

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  15. Hope you have had a LOVELY day today! I can't begin to tell you how much your blog brightens my day!

    Love and God Bless
    Julia xxxxxx

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  16. Congratulations on being a Wylde Woman (and on living is such an amazing cottage - is that really a picuter of where you live on the masthead?) Thanks for passing it along too! Must say this is a dangerous site to visit if one is hungry (and it is lunch time and yes I"m hungry and no I don't have anything that looks remotely as good as what I'm seeing here!)

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  17. Thank you, thank you my dear Marie. This award means so much to me...especially since it came from you.

    I was working on a surprise for you and I popped over to get something from your blog when I saw this lovely award. You are so sweet to give it to me. You know how dear you are to me.

    Since getting this honor my little surprise will take a bit longer to post so give me a little while then drop by and say hi.

    Happy birthday dear friend

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  18. Dear Marie Has a lovely and nice Birthday, blessings to you, I send you a card, tell me when you received, you know how the mail is!!! xxxxxxxGloria
    and congrats by the Award, well deserved!!!

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  19. Happy Birthday to you,
    Happy Birthday to You,
    Happy Birthday Dear Marie ....
    Happy Birthday TO YOU!!!

    I love the poem, and how very special the Wylde Woman award is. I do cherish my blogging friends. F.R.I.E.N.D.S ...

    Your Cinnamon Toast looks divine and I will be giving it a try. Ooo, marvelous, dahhhling! :)

    I do hope you enjoyed your birthday and I love reading about your life on your blog. Come happy, come sad, come sunshine, come rain. :)

    Peace,
    Dana

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  20. Many happy returns of the day Marie. I hope it was filled with many specials moments for you.
    Love & Hugs
    Sue

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  21. Happy Birthday Marie you are one special woman and we love you for all you share. I'm so hungry right now for the cinnamon toast that I may just get out of my PJ's and go to the store to purchase the ingredients. AHHHH I'm doing it. Sounds like a winner for a treat of a breakfast. Enjoy your day you deserve it.

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  22. Happy Birthday! I hope your special day was everything you could have wished for.

    Thanks for sharing such a mouth watering recipe too!

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  23. I hope you had a wonderful birthday. That breakfast looks terrific :D.

    Very sweet poem, I like how you break up your entry with beautiful flower photos :).

    Many blessings on your birthday...and many more posts for the years to come!

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  24. Happy Birthday! I hope you had a wonderful day!

    Yum-o-la on the cinnamon toast... That is a must try!

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  25. Happy Birthday Marie! I hope you had a wonderful day! Thank you for your wonderful posts -- they always are so inspiring and insightful. :-)

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  26. Happy Birthday Marie!! Sending you lots of good wishes to you on your special day and also wishing you many many more happy heathy years!

    Loved your poem.. so true about life!!

    Blessings,
    Angela KL

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Your comments mean the world to me, and while I may not be able to address each one individually, each one is important to me and each one counts. Thanks so much!