Lost: St. Anthony's Treasury

We tidied up the house last 08 September since GI was having some friends over to celebrate his 19th  birthday.  Inevitably, I ended up losing some things because they were moved from their usual location.  Ironically, among the things that I lost was my St. Anthony's Treasury.

I knew exactly where it was before we cleared the things.  I knew that I had set it aside precisely because I didn't want to lose it.  What I didn't count on was that I would forget where I had put it.

I searched high and low after the party.  I went through all the rooms.   I went through all the bags in our room where we had stashed away most of the things.

The prayer book itself is pretty old.  It belonged to one of my first cousins as it has her name in crayons with her grade, section and school -- R3-- PREP A -- SSM.  I like this prayer book a lot because aside from the prayers themselves, there are some snippets of background on the the prayers.  For instance, the Beads of the Seven Joys of Our Lady is composed of seven decades.  There is a paragraph which indicates that two additional Hail Marys are to be prayed, to complete the number 72 in honour of the 72 years Our Lady lived on earth.

I can't remember anymore what the cover looks like because I housed it in a zipped leather case I had purchased during one of my trips to Hong Kong many years back.   Sister Deer would recognise it because she has a similar coloured leather case but mine is about 3" x 5"" whereas hers is probably 8 1/2" x 11".

I had been searching for over two weeks.  Where could it be?  Would I be able to find a replacement? 

On my way home today, I read Father's FaceBook post which said, "Two of my children will in the air next 24 hours. J, KL to London / Atlanta. Mindy n family U.S. to Ireland" 

That got me thinking ... maybe Mindy could find me a copy.  I recalled that the book itself was published somewhere in Europe.  Ireland, perhaps?  

Let me check Google ... eBay ... Amazon ...

I went online when I got home and there was something that looked promising in eBay.com.uk with five days to go.     Am sure if this was the right book, London Eye would have a friend that had an account in eBay.  There were no bids, ergo no competition. I sent off a query.

I googled some more.  I found one in eBay.com (U.S.) that looked like it was the right one.  YES!  YES!   I found it.  This is the one.  Click!  Click!   Alas, bidding had ended YESTERDAY.  

:(

NNNNOOOO!!!!!

"St. Anthony," I pleaded.  "I need your help.  Please help me find my prayer book."  

St. Anthony must have heard my prayers because after I searched our room. I went to RD's room then decided to go to MyGirl's room. After about a minute of looking, I FOUND IT!

There it was safely tucked away inside a plastic bag with some of my things.

In the many times I had gone into MyGirl's room in search of the book, it had not occurred to me to open the bag on the top of her desk.  Even though this is the FIRST thing you would see when you enter her room,  I had assumed it contained her things therefore I had always left it alone.  

Tonight, however, after having missed the eBay bidding by a day, I decided I was not going to leave any stone unturned (any bag unopened).

Lo and behold, St. Anthony saves the day again.  

Thank you, St. Anthony!    I knew I could count on you.

Now it is time to pray.