Secrets you may not know about me!

Today I won a contest.......can you identify these things?

 

Jean, at the blog Ms Green"thumb" Jean, had a contest yesterday to celebrate a special occasion, read here, and I just happened to be checking my blog list and recognized the item shown in the picture above.  Guess what, I was the first to identify them!

Have you figured out what they are?  You may remember that rain gutter downspouts were round, once upon a time a long, long ago....not only that they were metal and NOT plastic.  Who knew!  Well, I did.

So, what you did with these things was put them in the gutter where the downspout was located, they were made to keep leaves and debris from blocking the down spout.  See, being a girl who is fascinated by all things in hardware stores and lumber yards pays off!  I bet you didn't know that about me!

I haven't received my prize yet, I'll share it when I do.  It's cool!

To that I added a trip to the coolest art/craft store in the WORLD, that maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but not much!  I'm prone to exaggeration, that's not a secret!  It's a wonderful place called Collage in Portland.  I went to the store on Fremont, but they are both wonderful.  Bought some goodies for making jewelry, scrapbooking paper, inks and drooled, a lot, over all the amazing stuff I coveted.

Then...........the frosting on the cake! 

Our friend and former neighbor, Gary, who moved to Ohio a few years back sent a package.........now this may not excited everyone but....

I spent  25 years of my life working for newspapers in ad sales and management.  I love newspapers, I pick them up from everywhere we go, so it was so great to have one from a place I've always wanted to go.  

The other part of that story is.....all my life I've wanted to be Irish. I don't know why, I guess it seemed romantic and I wouldn't have to learn another language!  My mother was born in Norway, trust me my Norwegian Grandfather did not appreciated my radical thinking!  Actually, when he heard he was appalled!  Maybe, he thought I could really do that....I don't know, but it is a memory that always makes me smile.

It's been a fine day even if I will always be a Norwegian, wishing I was Irish and, now, you now some of my deepest secrets....really?