I want to thank you all for participating in my Round Robin. I hope you all had fun. Maybe we can do it again sometime. I know I have enjoyed reading what everyone was receiving. Treasa, Fedex ground probably would have been cheaper than US mail. Diene, Yes fedex "ground" takes about the same amount of time as Parcel post...but most times costs less if shipped from a fedex station (not a mail boxes etc type location) and the tracking on fedex is much better and the insurance does not cost anything. Where USPS mail charges for both tracking and insurance. FederalExpress (not ground) is really fast but costs much more. I love the new USPS flat rate boxes. A specially marked flat rate box is only 7.50 priority. Cant beat those prices.

What beautiful stories....thank you, kindred spirits! My own love of nature began in childhood, when my parents' 2 acres of woods and creek seemed to hold unlimited possibilities for discovery and adventure. I knew no names of things, only the richness of sensory experience.....the scarlet of Virginia Creeper in September, the trilling of Spring Peepers in March, the smell of honeysuckle in June. I loved the strangeness, the vast mystery, the invitation for exploration that the woods represented. As a teenager, I drew away from nature, absorbed in the usual teenage activities. Then in college I needed a science credit of some kind and impulsively chose Field Ecology. The choice changed my life! I learned, for the first time, the LOGIC of nature, the amazing harmony of ecological interdependency. It just blew me away that 'nature' wasn't just some hodge-podge of living things, but that each component......from rocks to soil type to plants and trees to insects to birds and mammals....each were intertwined in marvelously balanced, perpetual cycles which made sense, made more sense, in fact, than most human activities. I learned to identify the "22 natural communities of Missouri," the limestone glades and granite balds, the oak-hickory forest and the ox-bough slough. For years after I could go nowhere without drawing a companion's attention to the natural community we were passing. Then I moved away. But I came back some years later. It seems I am as hopelessly native to this region as an indigenous bird or wildflower. I could not feel at home anywhere else. Having returned here, I've made an ongoing project of identifying trees and birds, fossils and wildflowers. I'm rehabilitating my family land to (hopefully) return it to its natural state, and I've volunteered with wildlife and wild bird rescue groups. These have been very educational experiences, but the scientific aspects of nature hardly represent the full picture for me. As an artist, my aesthetics are almost entirely inspired by nature, the seasons, the textures, the colors.....these define my personal sense of soul and spirit. Alone on a walk in the woods, I experience a peace and larger perspective, profound feelings of awe, respect and gratitude. Much, much gratitude. I guess, as Frank Lloyd Wright would say, "Nature is my church." I've also been very involved in local efforts to curtail development that would destroy the last refuges of nature here, both in zoning of private land and public parks. Because if you love something, especially something that cannot defend itself, sometimes you have to fight for it. This activism has also added enormous richness to my life, for I have learned the fascinating protocols and structure of community politics, and through it met my closest friends, including my dear, sweet boyfriend, a nature lover like me. But where did I get my love of the woods? I don't know. It seems to have been there forever...

I remember thinking Idaho's nativity set was attractive but cannot remember exactly what it looked like. I bought this one at Costco last year and saw that they brought it back again this year. Not sure if this is your taste. Here is a link that might be useful: nativity scene

Grandad..... no..... though I answer to Grandma to a couple of sprogs. Frieda, you are very partly right in that'Dido' is from classical legend of course - Queen of Carthage - and I love references like that; also poetry, yes, and I particularly love Purcell's opera 'Dido and Aeneas' with her dying lament, 'When I am laid in earth' before she climbs her funeral pyre as her lover sails away to found 'another Troy on Italian soil'. The opera also has a very beautiful viola solo - I used to be a viola player and have played it in several productions, up and down and here and there. But also, in another life I was a Diana.... let's not go into that, shall we..... but when I had to change, I realised I can't seem to let go of my name totally - it's me. So 'Dido' was one of the closest I could manage: even so, simply Dido was already taken so I had to put a 1 after it. Reallly, I should have registered as Dido Jones which I now consider to be my alter ego, though at first it seemed strange. For a while I felt like a different person, having a different name. Now I've just reverted to my old, grumpy, usual self. And, to cut a long story short, I suppose I look fairly Welsh (what I am - hence the adopted surname 'Jones'), being smallish (5'2", 56lbs), with dark-brown eyes, ex-dark hair (now white) and of an 'excitable' nature (have been known to throw things like ashtrays, in the olden days when there were such things lying around in any old places) Dido