Choosing Joy - Challenge

Today I found my JOY when I opened up my blog and my playlist started playing "Brown Eyed Girl." Such memories come flashing back. One of my good friends in high school loved this song and I remember dancing to this song with my group of girlfriends. It is just one of those feel good songs that everyone sings along with!

So as I sat there and listened to it I remembered fond memories!

Choose Joy - Challenge

Today I found joy when I found the two loves of my life asleep. It had been a long evening tonight with my oldest son as we butted heads. So my joy was when I finally got them to sleep and could turn the TV off, sit, breath, and relax.

How exciting?!?!

I have a few scrapbooking blogs that I read. But one of my favorite ones is http://www.knitandpurlgrrl.blogs.com/scraphappy/ . I first discovered Lain's blog through her podcast that I read about somewhere when I got my iPod last Christmas. Lain has podcasts that review scrapbooking products and she also does interviews with some "famous" scrapbookers. I subscribe to her podcasts through my iTunes and after 3 months without a podcast from her I discovered that she had a new one Saturday when I was updating my iTunes. So yesterday while at the go-cart track while waiting for Tyler to race I was able to listen to her podcast. She had a great reason to come back to the podcasting world because of a new book that she has just released called "Snippets". This is a book that I look forward to getting my hands onto. She has such a witty sense of humor.

So last night I decided to comment on her blog regarding the release of her latest podcast and how excited I was to find that she had returned to podcasting. I just checked my email and Lain sent me a message back! How cool is that! I am very excited!!! Here is the link to her podcast if you are interested... http://www.scraphappy.mypodcast.com/

Here is her message back to me...
Aww, thanks! I am going to do another one this week. :)Stay tuned!xoxo
L
Lain Ehmann
Contributing Editor, Simple Scrapbooks Magazine

Today I am thankful for...

...a nap. After enjoying 5 days off of work because of the Thanksgiving holiday I am really not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. This morning I got up puttered around the house, went to the grocery store, made lunch and laid down on my son's bed while the boys were playing in his bedroom and took a nap. I slept for about an hour and a half and when I woke up I really had no desire to get up. It was a rainy Sunday and a great nap day. I decided not to cook dinner tonight too.

Today ends my final day of my thankful posts although I think I may try to recap once a month the things that have made me thankful. Some blessings are small and some are huge but they are always there we just need to take the time to reflect and be thankful!

Thanks Sherry!!!

Today I am thankful for...

...the fact that Tyler gave it his all. He has been racing go-carts for about a year now and today was the 2nd to last race of the season. My husband borrowed a michron (sp?), a technical thing attached to the go-cart so we know how fast he goes each lap he races.

A few days ago we were talking to Tyler about a race that was coming up this Saturday and he made the comment that he would finish 3rd. 3rd is not a bad place to finish but if your expectation is to always finish 3rd and not aim for anything higher then why race. So dh and I had a nice chat with him about that. We borrowed the took for today's races. Every time he went out he got a few tenths of a second faster. So instead of him racing against the other racers today he raced against himself.

He gave it his all and although he did finish 3rd we are proud that he tried to beat his time every time he went out on the track.

Picture will be coming later once I upload them...

Today I am thankful for...

...Rachael. Rachael is our babysitter and she is one of the best that I have found. I trust her with my boys and I know that she has fun and enjoys being with them. She is home from college for the long Thanksgiving weekend. Eric and I were able to have a date night because of her being home. We went to dinner at Outback. Outback just recently sent coupons to our school for teachers that are good for $6.00 off an entree and you can use it as much as you want to until 12/31. Plus I had a $25 gift card there, again thanks to the fact that I am a teacher as it was a gift from one of my students last year. So our $45 dinner turned out to only be about $13 plus tip. Not too bad for two steak dinners. :0)

After dinner we did some Christmas shopping...starting with Game Stop where we walked out empty handed. Then off to Toys R Us...where we walked out about $200 later. Next we went to Wal-Mart...$70 later, but Eric also picked up some stuff that he needed for racing and stuff for the truck. Our final stop was to Target...$60 later. Oh, actually that wasn't our final stop...we tried going to Cold Stone Creamery because I had a gift card there thanks again to my students, but found out they were not longer in business. :0( I thought we were on our way home when Eric suprised me and we went to Dairy Queen instead for Blizzards. YEAH!!!

All money well spent but the priceless moment tonight was spending time alone with Eric...something that doesn't happen very often and something that we need to keep our relationship healthy!

Today I am thankful for...

...Sherry! I need to thank Sherry for posting this challenge. This past November has been a hard one on me. I have been dealing with some issues with my oldest son that I will finally get answers to in two weeks. I found out that my dad did something that my mom is very bitter about. Plus there are some medical issues that my parents are dealing with that I was not told about and called my sister who I asked to share with me what was going on. Now my mom is mad at my sister for telling me. I also found out that my cousin is getting a divorce. We were very close growing up and have stayed some what close even though 10 years ago I moved to FL and she is in PA. Within the past years the phone calls have come less and less frequent and I should have known something was up but just assumed that we were both focusing more on our families. Unfortunately that was not the issue for her. I know there are others things but my brain cannot wrap itself around those right now.

But Sherry has helped me find things to be thankful for this past month leading up to Thanksgiving Day. Some days have been harder to find things then others.