Hello Gold Star Revolution Squad and welcome to Gold Star Friday! It's time to announce our Star of the Week!
My very strong preference is to choose our Star of the Week from reader nominations! However, I will nominate the Star of the Week when there are no reader nominations to pick from, which is the case this week.
I would really love to hear about the fabulous people in your life, so please send me your nominations, and please see the end of this post for more details on how to do that!
All recipients of the Star of the Week award who live in the US can choose to receive a free gift from my Gold Star Award Winner collection** on Zazzle!
This week, I am proud to present the Gold Star of the Week award to someone who is very close to my heart – Karin!
I'm not sure really why it took me this long to name Karin as the Star of the Week. I owe a lot to her, and I will forever be grateful for the part that she has played in my life!!
Karin and I started off as friends. We met when we were teenagers, although I'm not exactly sure what year it was. Karin lived in Minnesota, and I grew up in Pennsylvania. Which might lead you to wonder – how in the world did we meet?
Well, Karin's aunt lived just a couple of blocks away from me, and her aunt just happened to employ me as a babysitter.
One summer, Karin and her family came to PA for an extended visit, and her aunt thought that it might be nice for Karin to have a friend while she was in town. So she had the brilliant idea to introduce Karin to the babysitter, i.e. me!!
Karin and I hit it off right away and became fast friends. We even became pen pals when Karin returned home to Minnesota, and we wrote to each other regularly throughout our teenage years. Karin also visited PA with her family most summers, so I got to see her then. Look how cute we were in the 80s!!!
Did you notice that I said earlier that Karin and I "started off" as friends?? What are we now, you might ask?? Well, in addition to still being friends, we are also sisters-in-law!
Yes, that's right, Karin is my husband Tom's sister! So all of those years when Karin was visiting PA, Tom was there too! But, Tom didn't factor into my life a whole lot back then. I was mainly friends with Karin, and I would see Tom from time to time at his aunt's house when they were visiting.
In fact, Tom and I did not start dating until many years later, when we were both just about 30 years old. And we have Karin to thank for bringing us together!!!
Karin and I had remained friends throughout the years. And, in 1999, she invited me to come to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she was living at the time, in part to go to a big music festival there called Summerfest. She happened to invite Tom as well. We both took her up on the invite, and the rest, as they say, is history!
So I meant it earlier when I said that I owe Karin A LOT! I would not be where I am today if she had not reintroduced me to Tom back in 1999. I am extremely grateful for her efforts in bringing Tom and me together!
Karin is such a great person in so many ways! She is incredibly friendly, kind, and optimistic! It's not surprising that she makes friends wherever she goes.
And I absolutely love her enthusiasm for nature! She is an avid skier, hiker, and cyclist – an all-around outdoorsy person who is always ready to take on a new adventure! Which includes her recent climb of Mount Elbert, which I believe is the tallest mountain in Colorado, coming in at 14,440 feet!!!
Karin lives in Colorado now, but the family tries to see each other as often as we can. I had the great honor and pleasure of presiding over Karin's wedding ceremony to her husband Eric a few years ago. We also got together for the 80th birthday of Karin and Tom's dad back in 2018.
And we will all be heading to Beaver Island, Michigan for a week this summer to see each other for the first time post-pandemic. This will be my first visit to Beaver Island, a place that is special to Karin and Tom's family. I am very excited about it!!
I cannot thank Karin enough for the role that she has played in shaping my life and for her friendship throughout the years. I am thrilled beyond measure to present Karin with this week's award! Please join me in congratulating her as our Star of the Week! ⭐
Would you like to nominate yourself or someone you care about to be our next Star of the Week? To read the rules about the nomination process and get more information about the free gift that U.S. winners will receive, please click here. Then submit the Nomination Form!
**If you click through any of the links on this page and make a purchase from Zazzle, I will receive two separate commissions: one for being the designer of the product and another for referring the sale to Zazzle.