Ice Cream

Earlier this week I received an e-mail from J.  It was a lovely note telling me that her father had found one of my gifts a couple months ago by the elevator in the parking garage near his work.  He used it recently to take J and her sister C out for ice cream when on their way to a nearby lake. 

When you leave gifts around as I do, it is so rewarding and exciting to hear from a finder but something about J's note was very special to me in that it reminded me of many happy times getting ice cream with my sister and Dad (and my little brother too) when going to the lake. 

Whether it be small ice cream stands, the local Friendly's or even my mother's own "ice cream window" where my friends, siblings and I would line up to order from the kitchen window while standing outside on the deck, ice cream and good summer times seemed to go hand in hand.

So on a drive yesterday I picked up four $5 gift cards for Friendly's and four $5 gift cards for a small ice cream stand near the lake.  I am hoping the eight finders get themselves a yummy summer treat and enjoy some time with their own siblings and friends!

J, thank you so much for your e-mail!

The Toad Under the Stone Wall

There is a stone wall that I drive by all the time.  It is an amazing work of art built over a series of years over a decade ago by a craftsman named Kevin French.  I remember driving by during the years he worked on it and seeing it come together piece by piece.

It marks the driveway and property along the road to a home that cannot be seen from the road.  The owners take amazing care of the wall and there are woodchips all around with any weeds quickly pulled up so as to not detract from the wall.  People are constantlystopping to look at it or take photos of its twists and turns.  In the center it has a twist that water can flow under.

Then at the very end the wall loops up and over creating an enchanting little space that has a toad tucked inside it.  I decided the top of the toad was a perfect place to leave a gift and had a pack of recipe cards and a note that seemed just right.