Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Tonight's picture was taken in April of 2008. Mattie received a birthday gift from a former neighbor who moved to NYC. When the neighbor mailed the gift to Mattie, there were all sorts of fun pictures and sayings all over the outer brown packaging paper. Mattie thought this was a riot and wanted to display the paper. We had it hanging on the wall for about a week. We shared this photo with our neighbors and they appreciated knowing how much this meant to Mattie.






Quote of the day: A failure is not always a mistake. It may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying. ~ B. F. Skinner

Sunny and I went on a three mile walk today to pick up items that were being donated to us from Scout Bags. The owners of Scout have a child, now an adult, who is a cancer survivor. I am very familiar with Scout Bags, as they are a huge rage in Alexandria, VA. Nonetheless they are sold all around the world and the ironic part about all of this is when I went to a hospital fundraiser a few weeks ago, we were assigned to sit at a table and my place card put me right next to one of the owners of Scout Bags. We got to talking and I told him about Mattie Miracle and our annual raffle. He suggested I email him a request for items, which I did the next day after the dinner. To make a long story short, Scout Bags donated 8 bags to us today, one for practically every occasion. We have never had a raffle item of Scout bags before, so this is definitely a new basket idea to sell this year. 

The ladies loved meeting Sunny! We took a posed picture as you see above and then a photo with everyone doing a pose! Sunny was very compliant with the whole process!

On our walk back home, we passed the Potomac River. Sunny just loves watching and chasing the geese! I have been posting photos of Sunny on Facebook lately and one friend suggested to me that Sunny get his own Facebook page! Totally fun..... the adventures of Sunny!

This is what the eight items donated to us look like. Scout bags are made out of an almost indestructible material and come in all sorts of ever changing vibrant shapes and colors. They are fun and useful bags to use for travel, storage, etc. 

This is the story on Scout.....

In the early 2000’s, when co-founder and creative director Deb Johns was on a trip in Milan, a chic plaid carryall in the window of the Helmut Lang store caught her eye. She remembered selling a similar looking bag (at a much more affordable price) during a recent run of her pop-up shop, Fifi.

In this a-ha moment, Deb realized that if she were to create her own line of tote bags that perfectly blended fashion and function; and, if it came at a better price than its high-fashion counterpart, women and families would come calling. Shortly after, Deb Johns and her husband Ben Johns started SCOUT (they named the company after a beloved family dachshund). The SCOUT collection has since grown to include accessories, coolers, storage, and rugs.


As creative director, Deb has an incredible knack and passion for bringing the new and re-invented together in a very fashionable and irresistible way. This drive for reconception inspires new SCOUT collections.