A Special Surprise

Happy Saturday Friends!  Today, I wanted to tell you about some magical mail that I received yesterday.  I have a blog follower, Joan from Portland, who is a frequent visitor here and she sent me a surprise package.  She's followed along with Magically Melissa for years now... back since the beginning when my blog was My Disney Life.

It kind of feels like I've known Joan forever, yet we have never met in real life until recently.  I actually finally met her in person at the Lego Fan Fest back at the end of April when we both happened to attend the same Saturday afternoon session at the show in Portland, Maine.  She recognized me and Eliot and came over to say hi!

This isn't the first time that Joan has sent me a package.  Back in 2015, she sent me some magical mail in the form of a Disney sign from Hallmark.  I absolutely love it and it means so much to me that someone would gift it to me.  I truly cherish it.

A few days ago, Joan reached out to me on Etsy and she told me she wanted to mail me something and that she needed my mailing address.  I responded back and before I knew it, the package arrived on our doorstep yesterday.

I won't lie, I was like a little kid on Christmas.  I love surprises and it's not often that Eliot or my family can truly surprise me with gifts.  Eliot's adorable, but he's terrible at keeping secrets from me.  I usually know what I'm opening before I even get handed the box.  So this was a real treat to be opening a true surprise.

I literally squealed when I opened the box.  Carefully tucked under some Shop Disney gift wrap, was a little NuiMO Eeyore and a bunch of NuiMO outfits.  Taped on the back of all the outfits was a little handwritten note about why she chose each piece.

Eeyore needed an outfit for spending time at camp during the summer in Maine.

She also found an outfit that reminded her of the little French sailor shirts and she wanted me to have it since she knows I've been working so hard to re-learn French!

Eeyore also needed an outfit to celebrate Walt Disney World's 50th Anniversary!

He also had to have a Spirit Jersey because every Disney fan needs at least one!

Finally, Eeyore has his own little Loungefly backpack... because you can't go to Disney without one!  Joan wouldn't know this, but the human sized Disney Snacks Loungefly backpack is one of the first ones that I ever bought way back when they were new to the parks.  Eliot and I must have picked up about 50 of them at MouseGears in Epcot before I found one with the perfect placement.  You can't find those anymore, and if you do see them online they're worth a lot of money.  (And it's one of my absolute favorites in my collection.)  Now, Eeyore can have one to match mine!

This gift meant so much to me... especially when I've been having a rough few weeks health wise.  I haven't said anything on here, but I've actually been having a lot of stomach problems the past 2-3 weeks.  You might have noticed how a lot of my posts are getting published later than the date they were "written" on.  I've had to do most of them in post dumps when I've felt good.  There have been a lot of days where I've been in bed or completely miserable lying on the couch from stomach pain.  Opening Eeyore and his accessories was definitely a bright spot in some cloudy days!

I love when blog readers and Etsy customers send us things.  Over the past few years, Eliot and I have received Christmas cards, stickers, thank you cards and other small gifts as tokens of appreciation.  We never set out to do any of this to "get stuff" or to "get praise" but it really means a lot every time someone reaches out to us.  This past weekend, we actually got a thank you card from a Make A Wish family that we recently made mouse ears for, and it also gave me the warm fuzzies.  

Here on my blog, it sometimes feels like I'm writing into the deep void of the internet, and I never know if what I'm doing is making a difference.  Some days, it can even feel like I'm wasting my time.  But then I always think of Joan and I know that she's tuning in.  And that means so much to me... especially when my own friends and family don't even read my blog anymore.  (Shout out to you guys if you are here, but most likely you aren't!)  At this point, my blog readers probably know more about what's actually going on in our life than some of our friends and family.  So please know that I am very thankful for all of you who do drop by to visit me here!

And thank you so much for your kindness Joan!!!  It means so much to me that you wanted to send me a special gift!  Eeyore will be a treasured and trusted little friend!  I can't wait to take him on adventures in all of his tiny outfits!!!  °o°