(Update: I'm stupid and can't successfully schedule a post. So this was supposed to be posted on Sunday...but you'll have to settle for it now)
Hello everyone! I’m still in sunny Seattle (I feel it’s
important to note that this is me being optimistic. I am writing this intro on
Thursday morning at my desk in New York, and from what I’ve heard, Seattle
doesn’t do “sunny” very often. Here’s hoping!) [I think I should quit my job and become a psychic...it was totally sunny the entire time I was there. Winning!] Anyway, I’m still in Seattle where
I ran away from all responsibility with my mom visiting my aunt. I imagine
I am having a great time. As I said in Friday’s post, I’m sure you can expect a
big photo dump when I return on Tuesday or Wednesday when I actually get
around to downloading all the pictures. In the meantime, please enjoy this
word from our resident Smidge…
Reason #52 Why Small Towns Can Be Great
I was born in a small town, and I live in a small town (and from that start you might be able to
figure out where that small town is) [comment
from Lily: Bruuuuuuuce] and I’ve always thought that although it comes with
some disadvantages (like EVERYONE knowing your business before it even happens),
the good out weights the bad.
After college Lily did something crazy! She moved to the smallest
of small towns 4 and half hours away in the middle of nowhere! For those of you
who think I’m over exaggerating, directions to her house included “turn left at
the only stop light in the county” and “right at the red barn”. I’ve
spent a lot of time making fun of her for this move. [comment from Lily: She really has] Now thanks to modern technology
I’m still able to e-mail her every day, which is wonderful, but sometimes
that’s just not enough and I need to take that extra step and send her
something thru regular old US snail mail.
For example, this year was her big b-day!!! You know the one
no girl wants to think about too much…30!!! (pssst…LILY you can totally make
that number lower before you post this if you want, I won’t tell anyone) I
couldn’t be there for it but I knew that I had to send her a fun care package
with as many goodies as I could think of that she could eat, and lots of notes
so she knew that even though I’m over 4 hours away, and we are both older then
we’d like to admit, I’m still me and she’s still her.
SO after a good hour in the store reading labels, another hour
writing fun notes (without the help of spell check which always makes things
interesting) and an e-mail to one of our other friends to confirm the address,
my b-day surprise was packed and ready to ship. I sent it out so that it would
deliver on her B-day and then waited for the fun phone call I would get when
she got her surprise.
Four days later I was sitting in my house going through old
mail when I found a letter from Lily with a return address that was NOT the one
that I just sent her package to. After a text to her to confirm, I discovered I
had sent the gift to an old address [comment from Lily: we've lived waaay too many places in the last 8 years]. I was devastated, not only did she know it
was coming now but because of my mistake it would take weeks to get to her, if
she got it at all.
Lily suggested that I call the post office to see if they
could do anything, I didn’t think they would be able to help but I figured why
not, I had nothing to lose. So the next morning I called the Post office and
told my story to the nice lady who worked there. She asked what the name was on
the package, and after I told her she said “oh I have that right here”.
As you can imagine my jaw dropped “WHAT” I said “REALLY!! That’s AMAZING…oh my
gosh you just totally made my week!!!” [comment from Lily: those of you that know Smidge in person, I'm betting you can totally hear her saying exactly that in her excited voice.] she giggled at that and asked for
the real address. There was no checking the computer, or asking for tracking
numbers I didn’t have, she just had it on her desk. Seems it came in a few days
ago and since no one knew the person on the address she was waiting for more
information. Only in a small town would something like this happen,
anywhere else a package comes in with the wrong address it gets lost in the
back somewhere, or returned to sender, not many people would have “waiting for
more information”.
So thanks to this small town post office Lily got her
package just a few days later!! And I got one more reason to love small towns.
It might even make up for that time in 5th grade when I got in
trouble for cutting across the railroad tracks on my way home from a friend’s
house after a “concerned residence” (the stoolpigeon’s name remains a mystery
to this day) called my mom to tattle on me…well then again maybe not, I did,
after all, get grounded for 3 days for that!
~Smidge
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If you follow me on Instagram (@momnextdoorblog) you may
remember this picture from a few weeks ago.
I can’t even begin to tell you how excited getting this box
o’ stuff made me! When my husband came home and saw it he said to me “You
giggled the entire time reading all these notes, didn’t you?” Yes, yes I did!
And then I called Smidge and we had an ear splitting conversation that went
something like this…”OMG SMIDGE! THIS IS AWESOME!” “I KNOW RIGHT! I KNEW YOU’D LOVE
IT!!!” “OMG IT”S THE BEST!!!!” “DID YOU LIKE THE TOY?” (because, according to
Smidge, every birthday gift must contain a toy!) “OMG I LOVED THE TOY!!!” (the
toy was an ity bity yellow ninja that was AWESOME and as soon as I said the
word “toy” Bud’s ears perked up, he ran over to me, plucked the yellow ninja
out of my hand and went off to play with it. I swear I didn’t call after him
and say “Hey, that’s my toy!”)
So my birthday gift was a few days late but honestly, it was
worth the wait! Smidge, as always, proved once again she is the best!
Lily
