Thank you to all of you who turned out to support local businesses at the Richmond Vegetarian Festival, and thank you for trusting me, a complete stranger, with your personal stories.  It is always a joy to receive them!  If you know anyone else who would be interested in the project, please- send them along to the site.  Also, feel free to send me as many stories as you can think of!

I wanted to share these two fantastic drawings- by a guest artist I met at Veggie Fest:

She decided to make her own from me to you drawings!  The first is for her mom, and the second, she shyly handed to me and said: "It's for you..."  I can only hope that my drawings even come close to making others feel the way this drawing made me feel.

504 s. Bonnday

A night underwater indeed. Two fish in the sea. Gareth has a big goofy smile.

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Hello Gorgeous

I grow hair all over my body, and he makes me feel comfortable with this.

I love my girlfriend!

My son is almost three and he is very talkative. He is so silly too. He told me that he had a girlfriend, I just laughed. He got his toy phone and started talking to his "Girlfriend", I asked him what her name was and he said Dina. Later I was putting a movie in the tv and he asked me to give him his dinosaur from off the top of the tv. I threw it to him and he hugged it to his chest (upside-down of course) and said, "I love my girlfriend". Apparently his girlfriend is a stuffed dinosaur named Dina.

Some things are worth the wait...

My sister and I finally understand eachother after 27 years!  We eat pizza and I agree not to hug her.

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To hell and back

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Get off of my rug, you nasty llama

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I'll tell you why you should buy my cheesecake...

Ok so one time I went to Philly with my husband Chris + a friend and when we got to my inlaws house Chris realized he'd left the keys back in Jersey. So after checking all the doors + windows, he shimmied up the fire escape and lept over to the open kitchen window. He let us in, and then went to run an errand while my friend and I relaxed on the living room floor, tired from an ice cream eating contest.

The doorbell rang, and it was a kid from the local high school selling cheesecakes door to door. We were so full the thought of cheesecake made us ill so we sent him away.

Then Chris came home, and said that the neighbor mentioned the cheesecake salesman. Incidentally, Chris and the cheesecake salesman were both wearing a blue shirt. When the poor kid went to the neighbor's door, the neighbor said "I'm not buying a cheesecake from you, I just saw you try to break into the neighbor's house!"

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Best port-o-potty trip ever

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Do you know what?

The week before my dad died, I was home sick with the flu. My last memory of him was when he was sitting on our green couch next to me. He was holding my hand and he said "Do you know what?", I said "What?". He answered "I love you so much!"

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I know that you worry... but...

Hey Dad:

My dad has been such an influence on my personality and life... I don't quite know how to say how much I love him... other than to say... jelly dog eggs. I don't know if I made that saying up or if he did, but it seems to be a tiny part of our relationship...

I miss my beetlehead

I have a friend who was a beetlehead.  She was generous with her beetlehead, and often gave beetle scooter rides.

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Help me spread the word about the project, and there will be more drawings for you to see every week!  Thanks for reading!

They are all living things, right?

Recently, a friend offered to let you and me take some plants home if we helped her thin a couple of garden beds. We carefully removed and potted purple coneflower, black-eyed susans, and mint. Good work, team. After a couple of days, we figured out that a significant portion of the alleged "coneflower" were really weeds. But that's just a matter of perspective, right?

Our new motto: "I am a friend to all plants."

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The dreaded PB

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Sometimes it's all about how you get there

I work with an all women landscaping crew. We transport ourselves and all our gear clown-car style in an old blue volvo. Six women and one ten year old tucked into seats and crouched in the trunk; flowering plants on laps; shovel, rakes and weed wackers come over the back seat to rest on shoulders; wheel barrows and bales of soil ride on the roof rack. Our fearless leader has a multi-tasking superpower of eating breakfast, writing lists, talking on the phone and driving all at once as we careen over the curvy back roads along the coast of Maine.

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We all need a little encouragement sometimes

It's ok that you are growing up, because you are doing such a good job at it

Our niece is graduating from High School, which we can't believe because how could she have aged that much when we are still so young?? Anyway, we joke that she couldn't be graduating from HS because "just last week" we took her to see the "Man-Ta-Tees" at Sea World when really it was 12+ years ago. We are so very proud of her!

A cat named Bear, who thinks he's a dog...

I used to have a cat named Bear. Bear thought that he was a dog, so if you took the plastic ring off a jug of milk and flicked it, Bear would chase it, pick it up in his mouth, and return it to you so you could flick it for him again.

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Defender of the Shattered World

This is for my son. Here's a bit about him -- He loves to play World of Warcraft and is now a "Defender of the Shattered World." He's 21 years old and figuring out life as it comes at him -- school stuff, job stuff, and just plain living stuff. He's an artist, plays guitar, LOVES music, and is a compassionate soul.

These gifts will save the world

My friend is a superhero.  She is tall, light olive skinned, beautiful, an animal lover, dark thick hair, Persian princess.

Her daughter is 7 and she is a superhero in training. She looks similar, with slightly shorter hair, and is a little more than 1/2 Sandra's height. Slightly rounder face.

Special powers include:
using communication to save us from violence,
making food delicious without killing animals,
dancing and singing until everyone smiles,
bringing animals and bugs back to health who are hurt.

Why, that snowflake is Insane

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Morning Glory- For my little Skittle <3

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Finally got these drawings scanned in and posted- sorry it took me a little longer than expected!

If you have submitted your story after the 21st, I will be posting you drawing on the 30th.

Again, thank you all for submitting!!  You are sharing something which is important and beautiful- these stories definitely brighten my day, and I hope they brighten yours.

You sexy, sexy compost

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Be my little paperclip?

"Paper clips" in and of themselves have become an inside joke between me and my current girlfriend. The first time I went over to her house, there was a lone paper clip sitting on her kitchen table. One of us picked it up idly, and the next thing I knew we'd spent near an hour playing with this paper clip-- stealing it from the other, back and forth. It's the most fun I've ever had with a paper clip. By the time we were done, the clip had gotten a little twisted and I remarked that it looked like a narwhal. Now the narwhal paper clip lives on her kitchen table, and all paper clips make me think of her.

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Can you taste it?

I used to have a roommate who was a radio deejay - a tiny little girl with big brown eyes & short black hair who loved glam rock & david bowie. One night I gave her a bag of jelly beans before she went on the air, and during her show she would pick a jelly bean & play a song that matched the flavor of the jelly bean...=)

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How thoughtful of you!

I know that one of her favorite memories is when I was 4-6 yrs old and used to run around with a doctor's kit and try to diagnose everyone. I would go up to my grandfather while he was sleeping on the couch and proclaim "I'm Dr. Kit, I'm Dr. Kit," checking for a heart beat in his toes.

If you could do something with that and maybe incorporate dandelions into it, I think it would be awesome... not sure how that would work though. I used to pick my mom flowers all the time. She would smell them, thank me, and put them in a vase. Later I found out that she was allergic to dandelions...

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I revolve around you

I travel more than I should, which keeps me from the people I love most. Not a moment goes by where I do not think about them while I am working from a distant location. I miss them.

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I know it's a little late...

A birthday celebration for Shirley! She will be 16 on Tuesday May 24th!! Something original from you to help her celebrate would be awesome!  She loves everything Italian. She loves dolphins and the colors, pink and green.

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Hanging over me

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I understand you

She loves her budgies. And they love her. In the morning they talk to each other, and in all their warbles, seem to understand one another.

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I knew what I meant to him

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Again and again, you impress me

I met Gage on a dance floor last Mother's Day. I fell in love over a hug and exchange we shared during one moment in time. Every day I realize how lucky I am to have a friend, lover, and partner in a man that I fall in love with every day. He brings out the very best in me and is a gift to me as an individual, in our partnership, to our friends and community, and as a role model to my children.

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Mommy, Daddy-

My story is for my son, James. He's about to turn two and is slowly developing his sense of language and emotion. Last week my husband and I took him to the zoo, we saw the lions and gorillas and the small mammal house and the reptile house and the elephants. We stopped for a snack in a quiet shady spot. Out of the blue, James said, "Happy! Mommy happy. Daddy happy." He was smiling the sweetest smile. It was awesome.

Hello all, thank you so much for participating in the project!!  I hope you like what I've posted- if you do, please tell your friends about "from me to you".  Without submissions from you, there is nothing to draw and consequently, the project won't thrive and grow.  Starting today, you can send me more stories for this upcoming week!  Enjoy!

In memory of Frito

I love gold fish.  I recently moved here and felt “incomplete” since my last goldfish died on July 4^th.  So I bought Frito.  The funny thing about him was; he loved flowers.  He would rarely swim unless he had a flower canopy.  Once in place, he swam laps around the bowl like a race car driver… as long as he had his flower.

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Sweet Beet

We met on a beach.  He shared his beer and bread with me because I was hungry.  Now we are in love and love to make pickled beets together while listening to the talking heads.

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Donde esta?

I just love how my soldier says the funniest things to our cat, and then has the cat answer. For example he'll yell out "Donde Es Ki" and then in his best kitten voice "I'm right here Daddy, I speak Spanish too.."

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You're small... but I'm smaller!

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Cover both eyes and tell me what you see

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Pickles make everything better

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Don't make a...

One of my roommates brought home a box of baby chicks from her education fieldwork to watch for the weekend. We weren't supposed to have animals in our dorm room, but it made for one great covert operation.

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You just might be someone's hero

He is the best partner and father, loves Chewbacca, makes his wife and daughters laugh hilariously with the word “sphygmomanometer”, cracks his wife up with “road house” or yoda comments, aspires to be a superhero and I think laughter and care are his super powers.

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For the Knight in shining Wayfarers

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Hello there,

I ask that you have patience with the "from me to you" project as it grows and changes- in its beginning stages.  I received very few submissions for this past week, then a great deal of submissions for this next week.  I've decided to work on them all in the comming week, and instead of posting just a few drawings today, I will post a lot of drawings on May 16th.

Thanks so much for participating, and please spread the word!

L'Onion...

Every year, for 6 days, my sister and I are the same age. This has been very fun for me all my life...I could pretend I was as grown up as my beautiful, smarter older sister. Somewhere along the way, I started to call her L'Onion and in turn, she calls me Radische. These are two unrelated truths about me and my sister, but a drawing with a fabulous onion and an adoring radish would be a groovy gift of my love for her.

sold

Who'd you call ELEPHANT?!

When we were little I called my sister an elephant and obviously it made her mad so she decided to do a canon ball on me. I was not a happy camper.

Head in the clouds

Surag and I get ready at the same time and share a very small bathroom space in the mornings.
To prep for shaving he meticulously rubs shaving cream on his cheeks and chin then moves in a perfect circle around his mouth. When he's finished there is a puffy cloud of shaving cream completely surrounding his lips. It's at this point that I position my face to kiss him. He smiles and puckers his lips out as far past the cream cloud as he can and, being very careful not to get any shaving cream on my face, kisses me very sweetly.
That's my favorite part of our mornings.

Why are there pots and pans in My cabinet?

I was a somewhat solitary child.
My mother, I think, was glad of this because it made her life easier since I didn't demand much attention.
The one inconvenience I did cause her was the inability to use the lower, corner cabinet in our kitchen. I regularly would pull out the pots and pans, stack them neatly along the wall and shut my toddler self inside for hours.
Eventually the cabinet was left empty for my exclusive usage.

Sailing the sea with you is always fun

One time when I was visiting my best friend in San Francisco we somehow found it hilarious to repeat the word "boat" three times (as in "boat, boat, boat"). That then extended to the word pork. And other words that have similarly enjoyable sounds. This is typical of our times together - we somehow find the enjoyable little things in a childlike way such as the sounds of simple words. This is one of the things I love about my best friend.

Dad, have you ever ridden an elephant?

Live with me?

Can you make a drawing for the woodpecker who has decided to make his home in my roof, suggesting to him that the tree out front might be a better source of food? I want to post it on the peak of the roof for him to see.

sold

My cupcakes are your cupcakes!

I would like a drawing of a penguin eating a strawberry cupcake.  She loves both of those things, and as I understand it, this works in a multiplicative manner: cute * tasty = awesome!

sold

How did they know?

I remember one summer day when my little sister and I were out playing around the house. A plane flew over really high and the exhaust fumes stretched out behind it like a kite tail. She couldn't read yet and I barely could. I guess cartoons had convinced her (and maybe me) that all planes were sky-writers and she asked me what this one said. I told her It said happy birthday to our great grandma. I didn't say it to trick or mess with her at all. I was completely sincere. She was so happy and said "Oh, that's really nice of them".
I'm pretty sure she doesn't remember it.

Don't worry...

For Tony:

"Picking nettles barehanded is tricky, but if you roll the leaf just right and crush the stingers, the fresh leaves taste like green beans and springtime."

Oliver

My intentions are good

Sometimes the world isn't so heavy...

Sold

Why is the rain so warm?

"I'll tell you the story and you can draw your own interpretation. My big sister and I used to share a bunk bed. It was one of those bunk beds where the top bed was a twin size mattress and the bottom bed was a double size mattress. I was in the twin on top and Katie was on the bottom bed. Anyway, we would always stay up late talking, me leaning over the edge to look down to Katie. We always played this game where I would spit and Katie would have to dodge it. Sometimes she was a willing participant, sometimes she was an innocent victim. Either way it made us laugh (eventually)."