Well Deserved

A few months ago, I came across a horrible blogging situation.  A woman named Stephanie Howell is a blogger and scrapbooker extraordinaire.  She has two beautiful girls, and is currently pregnant with TWO MORE beautiful girls.  And....her sweet hubby was away in the military.  (I think he was in Afghanistan???)  Anyway, she is an amazing writer and documents her life with her girls, life being a military wife, life of a woman pregnant with twins.  And she displays all of her beautiful scrapbooking layouts.  She has a loyal readership who adore her.  Anyway, it was brought to Stephanie's attention that there was another woman (obviously a complete whackadoodle) who was COPYING Stephanie's writings...word for word.  She was portraying herself as Stephanie, minus the pregnancy.  She was literally copying and pasting Stephanie's posts and using them as her own. (Apparently, she once forgot to change the name of one of Stephanie's daughters - Harper - and posted it that way.  Uh....big mistake.)  So disgusting.  Stephanie's readers jumped to her defense and long story short, that Faux Blog no longer exists.

My heart broke for Stephanie!  I mean, seriously, who would do such a thing??  It was just sad sad sad.  I though, this dear woman needs something POSITIVE.  She was well deserving of some love.  So, I contacted my cyberfriend Amy of Stem Parties.  Amy's other adventure is being a part of Operation Shower.  OS throws baby showers for women whose husbands are deployed or in other dangerous military situations.  They also DELIVER Baby Showers in a Box!! (side note:  Courtney is going to working on one of these for a Young Women's Value Project, so if you want to donate an item, leave me a comment and we'll contact you!!)  I told Amy of what was going on and asked if they had a box they could send to Stephanie.  Amy said ABSOLUTELY! 

Fast forward to Thursday of this week.  I got this email:

I honestly don't even know how to begin this letter. I've never had anyone in my life show me an act of kindness the way that Operation Shower did this week.


As my husband, Jimmy, and I began to open the box, we were overcome with emotion and gratitude. Thank you, thank you, thank you for thinking I deserved such a generous gift. Thank you does not cover how much it meant to me. To us.


Stephanie Howell
 
It made my heart sing!!!  I was so happy to have played such a tiny role in someone else's joy.  As you can see, Stephanie's husband is now home.  She blogged about that here and when I saw it, it made me cry. I cannot for the life of me imagine having my husband out of the country fighting a war.  The strength and courage of military wives is unmatched.  Not only do I view the military as heroes, but their spouses and children as well.  What a sacrifice for our country.  Sure makes me proud to be an American!!
 
I will be watching Stephanie's blog for the birth of Cate & Lucy in December!!!