Hugs, hugs, and MORE hugs to Susie![escape]
Susie is from Arkansas and was in WDW during the mail by date, so she kindly PMed me and told me my package would be late, but worth the wait - and was it ever!
Susie, you went above and beyond the call of duty. She not only sent me an overabundance of goodies, but the Arkansas history behind each , which I would like to share a bit of with all my DIS friends.
Susie sent TWO packages of delicious cookies for starters. Here's a bit about them......" Brent & Sam's Gourmet Cookies has grown rapidly in the past decade. The company now occupies its own building and employs a staff of over 40. The year 2005 marks our 20th year of business. Throughout all this growth and change, one thing remains the same: every single batch of cookies is made from scratch in Little Rock, Arkansas."
http://www.brentandsams.com/Where-Our-Cookies-Come-From-W2C19.aspx
Then she sent an awesome kitchen tool called a Zester Grater - "The big moment came in 1994, when Lorraine Lee, a homemaker in Ottawa, Canada, was making an Armenian orange cake. Out of frustration with her old grater, she picked up a new tool her husband, Leonard, had brought home from their hardware store, Lee Valley Tools. She slid the orange across its blades and was amazed. Lacy shards of zest fell from its surface like snowflakes. The Lees marveled at the tool, ate the cake, then promptly changed the product description in their catalogue. The Microplane® grater had earned permanent space in the kitchen. "{These are manufactured in Susie's hometown!}
http://www.microplane.com/story.shtml
As if that wasn't enough, a prettily wrapped bag with a yummy smelling candle and potpourri told me this -
AROMATIQUE... Creator of Decorative Fragrance
Aromatique, the Creator of Decorative Fragrance, was created twenty-two years ago by Patti Upton. Patti gave birth to this dynamic company literally "just for fun." She mixed together a mélange of native botanicals such as acorns, pine cones, gumballs and hickory nuts, fragranced them with spices, oils and ingenuity. Patti called her creation The Smell of Christmas and placed it in a friend's gift shop. Visitors were enthralled. This extraordinary decorative fragrance quickly turned into an overnight success, and customers were consistently asking for more. Often copied but never duplicated, The Smell of Christmas remains the company's flagship fragrance. As a leader in the fragrance industry noted, "It is great to create a wonderful fragrance, but to keep that fragrance at the top for twenty years is amazing."
http://www.aromatique.com/about/history.html
And there's more! A pen from the University she teaches at, craft items from local crafters that are donating proceeds to Victims of the Hurricanes, [a wooden heart shaped flag, homemade jam, bath salts and soap], a seasoning mix made in Arkansas, a book on Arkansas ....AND ...a
Walmart gift card because Walmart's corporate offices are in Arkansas.
CAN YOU SAY "HAPPILY OVERWHELMED"?! Thanks again Susie - OH! I almost forget - AND a souvenir from her trip to WDW - a Mickey Mouse potpourri container. Sigh! I DO love to be spoiled.........[ but what did I do to deserve it?
]
