A bedtime story

Last night the girls had to go to the bathroom at 3am.

Justin, being a saint, took them out. But sensing I was awake jokingly asked me to tell him a bedtime story to help him go back to sleep...

So...

Me: Once there was a frog. And this frog lived on a lily pad.

And the frog was happy but he wanted to explore.

One day the frog saw another lily pad.

He wanted to visit this lily pad so badly .

So he planned and he planned. And finally he was ready to set out on his adventure.

The frog's journey was wrought with trouble - first being a street.

Determined, the frog made his first leaps...

...and then I hit him with my car.

Justin: I was waiting for the evil part of this story.

Me: I'm teaching a lesson. Look both ways before crossing the road. Our future children will be blessed with my wisdom.

Justin:... I've got nothing...

I grew up with... A Teacher as a mom

I try to avoid double postings... But I felt like this deserved a special dedication of #100happy

Today, my mom was named principal of the year for her district. And I have to say something about it...

I grew up as a teacher's kid.

I grew up spending summers at my mom's school.

I grew up watching my mom stress about how she could do better.

I grew up seeing my mom spend her own money to do something nice for her students, and later, her teachers.

I grew up with "Leslie, do you have a minute?".

I grew up with a mom who put her heart and soul into what she was doing.

I grew up as an observer while kids, kids I didn't know, hugged my mom.

I grew up hearing from parents and teachers of these kids "we love your mom".

I grew up knowing my mom was something special.

And today, as an adult, I was a grown-up seeing other people recognize how amazing my mom is.

Because let's face it... She's pretty much a badass.

#SorryI'mNotSorryICussedMom

#100 Happy: The Journey Continues

About a week ago, I posted about my #100 happy challenge. Although I haven't done daily updates, I'm still keeping up...

Day 6: This text…

While it was a "short happy", I couldn't help but smile at the fact that after 10 years of friendship, the content of this message is totally normal, acceptable, and even expected.

Day 7: Great night catching up with great friends. In fact that I did something I shamefully haven’t done in a long time... spent the whole night without my phone next to me.

Day 8: Warm night = dinner on the patio. It was pasta of course.

Day 9: Who says you can’t have a chandelier in your laundry room?? Plus - it marked the end of one of my long list of home improvement projects.

Day 10: Being done with yard work. Ok, it was just done for the day but I was taking it as a win.

Day 11: Taking great happiness "taking the words out of Justin's mouth" 3 times in one day. Now if only I can send him signals telepathically... like "Get more beer"...

Day 12: Home Improvement Project... Progress. Although not marked "completed", I decided to take a moment to appreciate and be happy about what we HAD accomplished.

Day 13: Coming home to a cooked meal (thank you crockpot) – but the real happy moment was that all I had to do when I got home was enjoy the time catching up with Justin.

Day 14: My commute.

My hour-long commute. Each. Way.

I'm not crazy. Because of that commute - I have a dedicated "me" time without work or responsibility (aside from staying on the road and not getting caught speeding). Sometimes I spend it pretending I'm Adele, other times it's listening to my favorite morning show, but most of the time it's my quality-time catching up with family or friends.

Day 15: Time with this gal.

Granted… on this day she was in MASSIVE trouble… BUT she’s been causing massive trouble for us for 10 years now and has brought a lot of joy along the way. Happy birthday Molly-dog.

85 days of happy to come!

#100 Happy

So I stumbled upon this challenge that I thought was pretty interesting.

The full scoop can be found here, but the general gist is that it's a challenge to find something you're happy about each day for 100 days.

Seems stupid right?

But then I thought about it more.

Even in rough times, I have a lot to be thankful or happy about. In general I don't think I'm an unhappy person but I do think I'm a busy person. Sometimes too busy to really appreciate the things that make me happy. They may be mundane or ordinary, but lately I'm always onto the next thing to the point that I'm not stopping to smell the roses (you can't expect a "happy" post without a cliche).

So, here I am, challenging myself to find something to appreciate, or be happy about, each and every day.

Day 1: I decided to start off by making someone happy, which always makes you happy right? So I made one-of-a-kind original WG art and texted it to my husband.

Day 2: Sitting on our patio listening to the rain. I don't have a picture. I was too busy drinking a beer. I may have been happy, but I had priorities.


Day 3: Petting buggy...

Sure I pet my dog, but I never stop and really pay attention to how much she loves it. I mean... look at that face!?! It almost made me forget that she pooped on the rug the previous night... Almost.


Day 4: Sitting on the couch. Doing. Nothing. (So simple right??)


Day 5: Cuddling with my husband. Vomit right? Well let me offer explanation...

I. Am. Not. A. Cuddler.

In fact, our bed has a strict zoning process that I adhere to:

Not our actual bed - I don't roll like that.

But, no matter how much I enforce the zoning (Justin even claims that he sleeps in Texas and I sleep in Louisiana) Justin still wants to be close to me.

Which, is something to be happy about.

But stay on your side of the bed...

Australian Adventure: Put down the seat!

Dear Australia,

You’ve been lovely. You’ve been delightful.

But… I have a complaint.

What is it with leaving the toilet seat up!?!

Maybe it’s because there are so many co-ed bathroom spaces but I swear the amount of “seat up” in Australia is beyond acceptable.

Really, it’s amazing that I haven’t ended up with my foot in the bowel after doing the “ew ew ew – don’t want to touch that with my hand so I’ll just kick the seat ‘til it falls down” move.

I’m buying new shoes after this, by the way.

Call me spoiled, but I’m surprised that the women of the country haven’t revolted.

AND… Get this.

In Sydney, they’ve installed “outdoor urinals” on the street. I didn’t see any in-person… just the large flashing billboard sign that public urination is a $200 fine.

…Because apparently even with the outdoor urinal this is still a problem.

In my humble opinion, an investment in automated seat toliets would have been the way to go… Perhaps the public peeing fine will pay for it.

Either way, I’ll be glad to be back home.

And so will my shoes.

xoxo

Whit