Smarter then me....

Earlier this year I was convinced to purchase a smart phone. I am still learning how to use many features and find it has been nice to have a smart phone. I traveled to Seattle earlier this week and spent the night in a hotel and needed to use the alarm to be sure we were up on time. I figured out how to set the alarm with the help of my husband and thought this is great. Well I usually get notified when I get email or text messages with a ring I had set. I didn't know how to turn off the notification without turning off or silencing the phone. I couldn't do either as I needed my alarm. My husband was asleep and I thought well it will be fine in about an hour no one will text or email me.

Finally, the phone was quiet and I fell asleep. About 3 hours later I started to hear this music. I had set up a Christmas tone just this week for notifications. So about every 30 minutes I would hear this song. About 3am my husband and I were both awake and tired of the tone and I told him I am not sure if I turn down the phone we will hear the alarm. He asked why my phone had been so active.  I said it is all the pre-Black Friday specials being emailed to me. So every time the phone jingled we would chuckle and go back to sleep until the next time.

By 5:30am we had enough and just got up. I didn't even need the alarm after all. My husband told me I needed to turn off the notifications tone. I said I don't think I can or my text messages won't ring either. After the tone a couple more times and my husband laughing at me and my smart phone I decided I had to do something. Finally, I figured out how to turn off the notification and we had a peaceful morning getting ready for the day. But, my husband let me know he would not let me forget how my Christmas jingle kept him up half the night alerting us to pre-Black Friday sales.

It's Thanksgiving

It’s Thanksgiving!

 I am excited as a young child. I love holidays. I feel such joy and gladness inside of me. I know part of that is because I have faith in God and know he knows who I am. I have been brought up in a Christian home and I have continued that tradition in my own home with my family. Today I give my thanks to God for all I have been given and for the challenges along the way that have helped shape my identity. I am full of gratitude that I can be alive another day to share with family this day of thanks.

Over the past few years I have been researching family history with ancestry.com and familysearch.org and I have learned about real people and their lives.  Also, how what they did helped me to shape a life of who I am. My ancestors came over by ship through harsh conditions to give me a life in this great country. They were pioneers who came west even though they faced harsh elements. So today I am grateful for God and all my family now and in the past and everyone that comes into my life to help shape who I am today.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Ready for Thanksgiving

I will be hosting Thanksgiving in my home and it takes effort to be ready for company and a big meal. I know everyone will come with the idea of partaking in good food and some quality family time. I feel the weight of this responsibility on my shoulders. I feel it is an obligation as the mother of the family to be a place my children can come home and share the holiday. There are times I want to just say, “To heck with the holiday, everyone feed yourself.” That moment passes and I get excited to have family home again. I plan to be ready as I know my family looks to me to plan a great meal and I don’t want to disappoint anyone.

I have a neck warmer I am going to use right after dinner tonight. I will put it in the microwave and heat for a minute and add a couple of drops of some stress relieving essential oil. Then I will sit down with it relaxing my neck and shoulder muscles. This way I will be ready with a smile on my face and Thankful for this family event. 

Who am I?

“We know what we are, but not what we may be.” 
― William Shakespeare

Lately, I have been thinking quite a bit about my identity. I think how everyone grows up in a family and we know our role as a brother, sister, child, etc. then we are finally old enough to be on our own. It can be hard finding our individual identity. Do we go to college or just get a job? Where should we live? At home with family or on our own?  Sometime these are difficult decisions to make. You know if you go one way your life could be much different than if you chose the other road. So, each person must decide which road they choose.

I have already chosen a path and lived it for many years. Now I often think was this the path I planned and I tell myself, NO.

 Life cannot be fully planned.

 All we can do is enjoy our journey and make decisions about the direction and see where we end up. I am in a comfortable place in life and I am still enjoying the journey. I have had good times and bad, happy and sad, but I am going to enjoy my ride no matter what life brings along the way.

A Party of Sorts

On Saturday I went to a Tupperware party of a lady I know from church.  She asked for support as she was starting her Tupperware business and this was her introductory party.  I had at one time been a manager with Tupperware and felt it important to help her out by attending.  I also found out she had quit her part time job so she can devote time to working her Tupperware business.

I only mention this as I have found many people do not seem to support their friends and family in such businesses. Many will hear words like I am working out of my home, or network marketing, or be asked to come see a new product and will suddenly be busy whenever this person calls.

I want to help the mom and pop businesses in my community survive and I try to shop with smaller businesses when I can. I have a local man come take care of spraying for spiders and bugs each year and he is great. He guarantees his work and does a quality job. He is also very personable and fun to talk to when he comes for his annual visit. It is getting so hard to find the smaller businessman as the big box stores are taking over. I don’t want to go with the flow I want to try and disrupt the flow just a little. I know I am only one person, but it must start somewhere.

I am choosing to support family, friends and small businesses whenever I can. I had a fun time at the Tupperware party and I did purchase a few items.  I felt happy to get something I could use and help a friend start her business.  Now I know if I need any more products of this kind where to get them.  

Beginning my blog

I decided to blog about everyday living and I want to include hopes and dreams. I think we all should have them. If not, then this blog will hopefully help you have hopes and dreams again.

As I sat down to write my 8 month old kitten, Abby, decided it was play time with mom.   She sat on the keyboard and messed up what I was typing then climbed all over me.     Now she is standing in front of the screen. This is a challenge to start a blog with Abby helping. I love this 8 month old kitten but she is so spoiled yet, I am not sure how that all happened. Well yes I do. I don’t seem to be able to say no to her when she is purring and cuddling. This is part of my everyday life a kitten and two cats, Olivia and Gracie. Olivia and Gracie are sisters by birth and they are a joy. Abby gets rather spoiled as Olivia and Gracie don’t always like this cuddly stuff.

Abby

Olivia

Gracie

One of my hopes is to one day get out of debt and I am working on that avenue, slowly but surely.  This will lead to my dream of getting a new car, going on longer vacations and maybe even moving into a new home. I want to make memories and have a lot of laughs along the way.

Also, as I journey through life I want to make new friends and hopefully this blog will help me. I would love to hear the hopes and dreams of anyone who wants to share. Please share your successes and hardships and we will learn from each other.  I may share a few recipes along the way but I don’t intend to tell you everything I eat and hope that is not what we talk about either. I want to hear the stories of your day and I will share my stories as well.

Take today for instance, my car is in the shop as the brake light on the dashboard kept coming on. After 3 weeks or so I decided I better have it looked at since it could really be a brake problem. I know why they call the dashboard lights dummy lights. It is dummies like me that wait 3 weeks to see if the light will go away before I take it in. Good thing it kept coming on and dinging at me each time I went from stop to accelerate. I might have forgotten about the problem. Well I found out my brake pads are worn and the brake fluid is low. Who knows what would have happened had I remained a dummy. Also, remember my hope of being debt-free, well this will push that hope further out for me. I guess I could look at it another way; if I don’t get the work done it may not matter if I get out of debt, as I may not be able to brake at a stop light and could be hurt or worse not be here to tell about it. So I am going into more debt again to get my brakes fixed. Oh yeah and while they were looking at those they found another problem with my oil pressure and losing oil so that has to also be fixed. I sure hope they don’t find anything else. I have had the car 10 years now and it is starting to get more costly. I just can’t afford a new car payment as that would really put me behind in my plans.

I want to leave you with a thought for the day: