We don’t know how it happened, but Valentine didn’t win the contest?! How surprising! BUT, she did win an autographed copy of one of P. Allen Smith’s books, which we’re quite excited to know.

Mommy’s bookkeeping mind helped Valentine win it. (Mommy used to be a bookkeeper, right before we were born.) She was checking how many votes The Garden Gal’s article was getting, and noticed it got lower overnight one night. Well, the winner had more then 350 votes then we did, so there was no chance we could win. Mommy didn’t want anyone to think it wasn’t a great story though, so she e-mailed the folks, who work with Mr. Smith. Mommy can be very nice, if she isn’t washing stuffies or toilets, so they liked her e-mail, apologized, and sent her the book. Sure, it’s to “Lynn,” not Valentine, but Valentine knows she got it for her big help in the garden!

Now, that’s not the only good news we found out today! We get notices about any story online having to do with Teddy Bears, and we read a really nice one today. Two teddy bears were accidentally left behind when shopping at a thrift store. (That’s not the nice part, but it happens. It has almost happened to us more than once! We find all sorts of cool things in those stores – sometimes even other stuffies – and we wander off. If our Daddy and Mommy didn’t worry about us so much, they might leave without us, thinking we’re still inside our special carrying bag with our secret trap door on the bottom.)