Finding the good...

I was web searching for something the other day and this sign popped up in the search. What an amazing statement.

What if we only focused on the good in our life each day? What if as evening draws nigh, we reflect and find ONE good thing that happened to us that day. Nothing major. Just something simple that made you smile. Some challenge you faced and overcame. Something that could have been negative that you turned into a positive. 

Yes, we are not in control of what happens every moment of our life. But I serve a God who IS in control. And no matter what is thrown my way, I have been noticing that there is usually a ray of sunshine even in the gloomiest days. 

I woke up feeling really bad this morning with a headache, sore throat and just the general blahs. I am heading into work for my sixth day straight. Two of those days were 10 hour days. Needless to say I am worn down and exhausted.  It's one of those, "don't-feel-like-going-to-work-but-not-sick-enough-to-stay home" days. 

So I decided to look back over the past few days in my memory to remember some of the moments in my day that made me feel good.

1. There was a day when I had to interact with a group of about 13 Chinese women who couldn't understand English and definitely couldn't speak it. One lady and I were able to converse a little with a lot of hand motions and pointing. As I was speaking with her I tried to ask if they had been doing any shopping while they were in town. Thirteen heads jerked around my way. Thirteen smiling faces beamed from ear to ear and 13 women all started nodding and saying "Tomorrow. We shopping tomorrow." You just had to smile.

2. I went to Krispy Kreme to get me one original glazed after my lunch the other day. I pulled to the window and the lady said $1.29. I handed her my money and she says "I'm going to do something to make you happy." And she handed me a box with one dozen Krispy Kreme glazed donuts in it. She smiled and said for me to pay it forward. I took them to work and shared them with everyone. She made a dozen people extremely happy.

3. And yesterday I was assisting a couple who were listening intently to me. Then the lady says "You speak very fast and I am French and couldn't really understand what all  you were saying." She was so sweet about it that we all had a good laugh. I slowed down and she asked questions and we were able to overcome the accent barrier. I never really spoke to a real French person before and that is one place I have always wanted to travel so it was really nice meeting her. Even though the main thing I associate with France is my love of French toast which it turns out has nothing whatsoever to do with France. 

See how simple that was? I thought about the past few days and found three things that happened to me to make me feel good. You should try it. It's a lot better than focusing on the things that are negative in your life! 

Weekend wrap up...

I made up for my three day weekend last weekend by working all weekend this week. But that was because we were going to be extremely busy at work and I was learning some new stuff so I told them I would be happy to work if they needed me. It was an 8 hour day Saturday, 10 hours on Sunday and 9 hours on Monday. I'm back to normal hours now but I am still recuperating from the weekend. 

I started Saturday morning off by making my famous Reese peanut butter brownie trifle. It's always been a huge favorite anywhere I take it.

But this is the first time the entire bowl was gone in less than 30 minutes. Guess I need to double the recipe the next or just not take it on a day that we have double the employees working. 

I worked late and knew I was too exhausted to fix supper so I stopped at Shoney's and had the breakfast bar for supper before coming home.

Sunday I went to church then headed into work. We had four shows Sunday at the dinner theater and I was helping out with the groups, the seating and the surveys. That involved 4 times of walking 1/2 of the arena up and down five flights of stairs and across 6 full sections of seating, which was one half of the arena. That was in addition to my spending some time on my normal job in the call center handling reservations. I have got to get a pedometer to see how many miles I walk per show. This is the most fun I have ever had getting my exercise in. 

One thing I learned from helping with the new part of my job, is I am investing in some Skecher's on my first day off with memory foam in them.

Monday, somebody posted some new Pyrex bowls that were just released. They are the modern clear storage bowls, only they have added the Butterprint pattern and the Snowflake Garland pattern on them.  Some lady went to three Walmarts to get enough for all her friends that collected. I tried our Walmart. They don't have them yet.

So I headed to our Corningware Factory Outlet. They didn't have them in yet but he is expecting them any day. But they did have this...The Pyrex Charms Corelle dishes int he new Butterprint, Friendship, and Dots patterns. Be still my heart. I fell in love. 

I will definitely pick up some pieces of this.

Along with a couple of the little ramekin size bowls. This is perfect for when I want melted cheese and chips/crackers for a snack.

I hit it off with the two managers that working and got some insider info. Like the fact that they have these in the back in stock and will be releasing them either this Thursday or next Thursday. The man even went to the back of the warehouse to get one so I could see what they were going to look like. They also told me to tell them I was local and they would ring up with a 10% discount. 

But then he told me they had the cats as well were getting the ghosts. Oh my! This is not a good thing that I hit if off so well with the managers. I drive right by here on my way to work everyday. Going to have to set a budget.

We only had one show yesterday so I only had to go up to the arena for the one show. But the phones were busy so I was really exhausted when I got off work. It has been at least 3 or 4 weeks since I had pizza....which is not like me at all. So I treated myself to a pizza and chocolate chip brownie from Pizza Hut. Ah, the convenience of living three minutes away from Pizza Hut. 

Well, there's my weekend wrap up. As you can see, even though I worked the whole weekend I was still able to have a great weekend. Enjoy your Tuesday.

Happy Labor Day

Stay safe and have a Happy Labor Day.

Sunday songs

A little cow humor to make you smile...

Friday Foto Friends

Friday Foto Friends

I am super excited this morning. I am still trying to learn to crochet. I have been able to do a chain stitch since 8th grade, but never learned any more from there. But you can't make something by just constantly doing a chain stitch. Or can you? I found this on one of my old posts this morning. It's a wreath you make from chain stitching and wrapping the yarn around to make the wreath when you are done. 

Well, I happen to have some Christmas yarn and decided to give it a try this morning since I can at least make a chain. I don't have any ribbon and I didn't have enough time to make it quite long enough, but this was just an experiment. And I would say with a longer chain, some hot glue to hold the round shape and some pretty Christmas ribbon, I could actually make some of these.

How cute would they be with a tag on a Christmas present. 

A place and time...

Do you ever have items you see in a store or on the internet and it just automatically takes you back to a place and time that brings a smile to your face....

Well for me, it was recently a package of jacks.

I was the Queen of Jack's. I could do all the way to my ten'sies without missing any. We had a concrete patio out back that was perfect for playing and in the winter, we could play on the kitchen linoleum. But this one memory always resurfaces and makes me laugh at the antics of four young friends. 

When I was around 2 or 3 the Kuhn family moved three houses up the holler from ours. My sister, Rachel, was a year older than me. The Kuhn's had a daughter my age named Vickie and a daughter a year younger than me named Teresa. Mom and Dad became friends with the parents and a friendship between us for girls was formed. It has stood the test of time and has given us many, many happy memories. 

One such memory was the great jack episode when we were probably around 8 or 9. We were always at each others house and I mean ALWAYS. We would go up there or they would come down to us and we were allowed to play for an hour. Then we usually coerced the mom's to let us go to the other house for another hour. So we were together for two hours almost every evening of our life till we got in high school. 

But one of my funniest memories was when we were at Vickie and Teresa's and Helen was making a big old pot of either soup or beans, I can't remember which. We talked her into letting us play jacks in the kitchen floor. She said as long as we didn't bounce the ball to high and break anything. Now, of the four of us, Vickie was our more, shall we say bold, adventurous one. When I look back on the few times the four of us ever got in any trouble, it was usually Vickie's idea. but we just went along with whatever she suggested. 

Well, it was her turn to throw the jacks. It was a high number like the nines or tens that she had to pick up all at one time. If you have ever played jacks, you know that the more you have to pick up, the higher you need to bounce the ball to have time to swoop up the ones you need. 

Well, Vickie took her turn. She threw out the jacks, eyed the layout to put together a game plan to get them all. She bounced the ball. It went up, but ...... it never came back down. She had forgotten that we had lost the jack ball and were using one of my brother's bouncy balls. And if you have ever bounced a bouncy ball you know they can go high.

As a matter of fact, this one went so high....it landed right in Helen's big soup/bean pot. Well, suffice it to say that we didn't get to play jacks in the kitchen any more, we learned a valuable lesson about bouncy balls, and most importantly we ended up with a funny story to remember the rest of our lives. 

To this day, I can't see jacks or bouncy balls without remembering that day.