Thursday, October 6, 2011

I am back in blog land ready to start blogging again after my brief one week intermission. As many of you read I took my intermission because I was going to be entertaining two blogging friends here at my home in California.

What only a few of you know is the story of how we all became friends. This post is going to tell you of my wonderful journey of a destiny that would attach me to a wonderful group of ladies.....

Three years ago HGTV had a show called Rate My Space. I am sure many of you will remember the days of RMS. With the introduction of the show on television there was also an online site for HGTV where homeowners would post images of rooms in their homes hoping to be chosen for a makeover, or as the inspiration room for a makeover.

I loved to see the makeovers and also the beautiful rooms that were chosen as inspiration for the homeowners that were in need of help in designing a beautiful room. The show was hosted by Angelo Surmelis. He was a delightful host that set the mood for the whole show with his enthusiasm, and ease of design.

After watching the show for quite awhile, I decided to post my kitchen. I felt I did a fairly good job using inexpensive, and good ideas to redo a 1970’s kitchen. In fact my title for my kitchen was, “ A 1970’s Redo!”

This is the interesting part, I had never even turned on a computer at that time.

Luckily I have a very supportive hubby, and he helped me along the way.

After just a few hours of posting my rooms I had received very positive comments, and wound up on the front page, which I found out later was a really exciting thing to happen. Remember I have no idea what I am doing here.

As time went along I posted more rooms in my home and truly was, “Enjoying the Process.”

In my comments I received a comment from a lady who invited me to visit her blog. I did not pay much attention, since I was such a newbie, and had no idea what a blog was.

I then received another invitation from another lady. Well, if two ladies with homes I had admired invited me to the blog thingy, I guess I should check it out.

I had NO idea this world even existed!! For a design enthusiast this was like a kid in a candy store. I don’t have to tell any of you out there how exciting my new journey was, because I know you all have had somewhat the same experience when you made your own discoveries about blog land.

As time went by I was beginning to realize that there were a lot of nice, like-minded people on-line.

I am not sure how or why, but I received an invitation to join another online site called Micasa. It was much smaller than RMS, which by this time had become a whole different place due to some not so nice people.

I was lucky in that I had never been attacked with unkind comments, but I had seen others that became a target of these not so nice people (they were called trolls by some.)

I posted rooms on the Micasa website, much like I did on the RMS site. Comments were left by some very nice ladies on my rooms, as well as other member’s rooms.

As time passed we seemed to be developing a kinship with one another. I would look forward to my morning cup of coffee as I would log onto Micasa. It actually became somewhat of a chat room. We would laugh about having our morning coffee in each others, bathrooms, bedrooms, etc. Not physically, but mentally as we would post our comments under the pictures of each others rooms.

Over the months we became closer, and closer. One dreaded day we all received the announcement that Micasa would be closing their site, due to lack of interest.

OH NO!!! what would we do? None of us had each other's email addresses. You don’t post your email address in a public online forum. We were all afraid we would lose touch. This just could not happen, what a sad thing it would be to not correspond with these wonderful ladies.

As luck would have it, there was one very smart lady that took it upon herself to open a private chat room that we all could continue to meet up with our morning cups of coffee.

She posted an email address where we could all contact her and give her our email addresses. She would close the email address after we were all notified. It was all settled we were about to start a new journey in our very own private chat room.

We had to have a name to call our group, and also we needed an avatar. Throughout our many months of corresponding on Micasa I would refer to my plans for the day as Puttzing. The definition of puttzing around the house is a day full of, wearing sweats, a ponytail, no make-up and just doing as little, or as much of the household chores as I wanted to do. Puttzing days are actually my favorite days of the week.

The other ladies came to refer to their own days around their homes as a puttzing kind of day also. Soooooo…. We will be called the Puttzer’s!! Since our day always started with our first cup of coffee, and a good conversation among the ladies, our brilliant founder thought a coffee cup would make for a perfect avatar.

The Puttzer’s now had a place to continue cultivating our ever growing friendship. That was three years ago………..

Since that time I have had the privilege of meeting in person four ladies in our group. The first time was when hubby and I planned a trip to meet up with two of the Puttzer’s in North Carolina. I will never forget seeing them for the very first time.

We made plans to meet at a B&B in the town we were visiting, Asheville North Carolina.

As we pulled our car up the graveled driveway, there they were!!! Two beautiful ladies glowing with amazing smiles and jumping up and down like school girls.

I told my Hubby to STOP the car, I had to get out. We looked at each other, squealed with delight, cried, looked at each other hugged and squealed some more.

It is so hard to articulate this type of experience, but if you have had the pleasure of writing someone, and having a long distance relationship, and then meeting, you know exactly what I am talking about.

I finally got to meet two of my Puttzer ladies!!! We started talking and did not stop for 3 days, or since, for that matter.

The following year we were invited by one of our ladies who owned a beach house for another Puttzer meeting. I flew out to North Carolina, this time by myself, and met her for the first time, plus the other two ladies that I had met the year before. We were together for five wonderful days in a beautiful little beach town. It was as if we had never been apart, we picked up where we left off just like we had been sorority sisters.

I had never been on an East coast beach, so it was a first for me, and one experience I will never forget. I also got to see my very first firefly. As my southern hostess explained to her husband, my reaction, “She is just giddy!!” (in the cutest Southern accent!) She was right, I was giddy and full of delight with my whole experience.

This brings us to my recent intermission………..

Two of our Puttzer’s flew to California to stay with me for five fun filled days. One lady I have had the pleasure of spending time with on the previous visits. The other lady I had never met in person so this was her first experience of meeting any of the Puttzers. Again……… we hugged, cried, laughed and jumped up and down at the airport.

We started talking and never quit except for sleeping, which we got very little of for 5 fun filled days in California.

(I will post more about their visit in up-coming post.)

That brings us to today…..Since starting the chat room we now have five ladies that are actively blogging. It is because of the encouragement of these wonderful ladies that I started blogging. I am forever grateful to them for all their support and encouragement. Half of us have met each other, and we are planning future visits so that someday ALL The Puttzer’s will have met each other.

Just think if I had never taken that first leap into cyber space at RMS? I would have never had this amazing journey, or would have never met these amazing ladies.

We are beyond friends we are, The Puttzer Family and I for one can say I am very proud,happy, and honored to be a member!!!

Kathysue is still:

“ Enjoying the Process!”

BTW: Come back for my next post where I will introduce you to the Puttzers that are bloggers!!