MY HAPPINESS TODAY:

~Staying off the computer all day. I did it! And it didn't kill me. I feel great! And my house is sort of clean.

~No cavities at the dentist. Woohoo! Safe for another 6 months.

~Sat on the floor for an hour and just watched Allie play. I loved watching her expressions and her little pudgy hands trying to figure everything out. Fleeting moments.....

~Blueberries from Oregon. I can't stop eating them.

~Nate looked dead sexy in his new shorts today. Such a yummy boy he is.

~I got the "nice" cashier at my grocery store....trust me, it's rare!! She didn't even act annoyed at my 4 separate WIC purchases.

~Made THIS for dinner. It was fabulous. Thank you Andrea.

~Got my final order of flowers in the mail today. They look precious....on BOTH of my kids:

I'M GRATEFUL FOR:

(excuse the randomness....these are always gonna be the first things that pop into my head.)

~My apartment. It's really old, ugly and over-priced, but it's our home. It keeps us warm (& cool), my children have a comfortable place to sleep at night, and we feel grateful every day that we live here right now.

~Chocolate-covered pretzels. Absolute heaven in my book. If Flipz go on sale, I stock up. The perfect combination of salty & sweet.

~Honda. I will never drive anything else. Nate will....but I won't.

~Diapers. Disposable ones. Some people can go the cloth route...but not me. This also makes me grateful for the dedicated garbage people who faithfully haul them away tri-weekly.

~Blogs. I have stumbled my way across some TRULY inspiring (& sometimes hilarious) blogs that have really touched me. Thank you to these strangers who have let me into their lives so that I can improve mine. Need a good reality check? Read Angel Lucy or NieNie. Need a good laugh? Read Cake Wrecks or Seriously, So Blessed (this one is a satirical blog about a typical Utah Mormon mom....it's entire ficticious. She's made up. It's genious.)

A MEMORY FROM MY PAST:

Okay, I HAVE to share the "Infamous McDonalds Story." It's definitely one of those 'you-had-to-be-there' stories, so it may never be as hilarious to anyone else as it is to me and my sister. But it needs to be written down somewhere. Might as well be here!!

So I was 14 and my sister DeAnn was 20. It was a Saturday late-morning. I was still in pj's, and DeAnn had just finished mowing the lawn....we just looked slightly ragged. No big deal. So we had some of those little Monopoly peices that McD's sometimes does....you all know, right? Well we had some peices that were coupons for a free hamburger and one for free fries. So we get there, and when we get up to the counter, and for some reason, anytime me and my sister are anywhere public, we get sort of loud. So we started discussing (loudly)....and I think it went something like this:

D: I'm not that hungry, so I'll just eat some of the free fries.

B: OK, so lets just get the free hamburger and fries and then an extra fries.

Cashier: You can't use 2 coupons in the same order.

D: Well I just really want to use the coupon, so let's just each order seperately and each use one coupon.

B: OK.

D: So I'm just going to get a water.....they are 10 cents. Do you have a dime?

We are both digging through our wallets for a dime. (no sales tax in oregon, yay!)

Okay, so I'm trying to paint the picture for what happens next. Can you just picture these 2 grubby girls loudly discussing free coupons, water, dimes, etc. ???

Here it is:

DeAnn is ordering, and I'm standing behind her. Suddenly this nice lady walks up to me, hands me a wad of cash and says, "Go on, buy yourself something. It's okay. You girls buy yourselves something."

No joke. I will never forget it, I can still hear her. I just stood there because I was SOOO confused! She walked away before I could register what had even just happened. So after we sat down, I showed this little wad of cash (I think it was like $6 in ones) to DeAnn. We couldn't believe it! We both ended up MAKING money from it...a few bucks for each of us. Ha!

How HORRIBLE must we have looked and sounded for a perfect stranger to feel the need to give us money? I even had a $20 bill in my wallet, I remember...I just didn't want to break it!! I hope that lady recieved some sort of good fortune for her kindness.