Joy!

This week was quite interesting to say the least, especially with school. Monday we were off because of MLK, Jr. Day, Tuesday I left school early for an appointment, Wednesday + Ice = No School, Thursday was a regular day and then today we had a two-hour delay. I could really get used to a barely 3-day work week! Primarily because I have been able to sleep so much more this week! Wa-hoo! Nothing like my 13 hour nap/sleep about a week ago, but more shut eye for sure! :)

Anyways! I have spent too much time reading forums and such and today I read something that really struck me:

Joy lies in today.

Makes sense right? Too often I am guilty of waiting for joy to come. I anticipate an great weekend [*cough* February 4^th], I look forward to spending time with Chris/family/friends, or going one place or another will be so much fun. But all of it is in the future. Additionally I am a bit of a worrier so in a vicious-cycle twisted kind of way, sometimes I don’t enjoy the now in fear that something later is going to happen that would take the joy away. It doesn’t make sense, but I do it. But joy lies in TODAY. Today I can choose to be joyous [and content] in my circumstances regardless of what that might look like. I can cash in on the joy today instead of investing it in tomorrow because then tomorrow I can turn around and cash in some more! Today I can choose to be joyous even if tomorrow that joy is taken away from me.

Joy lies in today.

When I read this this morning I was also reminded of my faux New Year’s resolution. [You see I don’t make them and never really have—except twice and I kept both of them! Once to stop picking my nose and the other to not drink pop for a year. There’s some transparency for you! :)] Anyways at the first of the year, my spin instructor—who so graciously kicks my butt three times a week!—mentioned that no one is going to cause her to have a bad day.

I like that.

No one can cause me to have a bad day. It is a choice that only I can make and I am not going to give that power over to another! So while I don’t have a resolution such as lose ten pounds [Check. Did that in December.] or to budget our finances [Check. Been doing that since May 2009ish.] I decided that this motto/idea would become my faux resolution.

No one can cause me to have a bad day.

Because.

Joy lies in today.

It doesn’t matter if my students drive me bonkers [which happens] or I get stopped by every red light [which happens] or store clerks are particularly rude [which happens especially when they don’t understand their own store’s policy for coupons] or life in general just seems down [which happens], I am choosing not to let anyone or anything to cause me to have a bad day. And that, my friends, is trumped by the fact that joy lies in today.

So how are you choosing to experience joy today?!

But before signing off for today, I do have to make one little confession. Even though I am working at making this my motto, there is a particular time when I find it particularly difficult… when I am in the woman’s restroom at school! Why you may ask, in hopes that I don’t get too personal? Well that’s because the toilet paper dispenser doesn’t spin smoothly and as a result I get one. square. at. a. time. This still steals a little of my joy! :)

Friendships

Lately I’ve been thinking about friendships and what they really mean. More specifically I have been thinking about “best friends”. I’ve come to the conclusions that I don’t really know what a “best friend” is or if I have a best friend.

Tag along as I think through this. What is a best friend really? Is it someone who is always there? Is it someone you spend a lot of time with? Is it someone who you can confide anything in? Someone who share both your greatest dreams as well as your greatest fears? The person who is the first to know what’s on your mind and heart? Someone who can tell what’s on your mind and heart without you saying? Someone who never forgets your birthday or special occasions in your life? The first person you want to text when you just heard some gossip good news? The one you have been friends with the longest? Someone who is very similar to you?

Seriously. What is a best friend? What got me thinking about this topic is how I commonly will describe various people as my best friend depending on who I am talking to and what I am talking about. Sometimes I’ll even put qualifications on my “best friend”. So-in-so that’s my best friend from… Or yeah she’s my best friend but we don’t really see each other often… This list goes on and on and by doing so I can think of nearly 10 people that I have referred to as my best friend over the course of the past few years.

So who is my best friend? Well that would be Chris, but beyond him I am not sure that I have a single person that I would call my single best friend. If I were to answer each of the questions that possibly describe a best friend as listed above, I’d likely still have many friend’s I would answer with.  I enjoy my friendships and appreciate them all greatly too, but I think that it would be neat to have a person that is clearly my bestest friend ever and I am her bestest friend ever as well because I don’t think we all value our friendships with someone in the same way that they value it in return. 

Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I am alone in this boat. Maybe I have never let all my walls completely down so that others know me more intimately as a best friend. Maybe I do have more than one best friend. Maybe it’s you! J

Excuses & Lessons

It's the thought that counts right?! I sure hope so because based on that statement, I've had so many blogs posted since October that neither you or I would be able to count them! Sadly in this case, that statement doesn't matter!

Here is my primary excuse why I haven't put my fingers to the keyboard and typed up all these thoughts in my head over the course of the past 3 months:

I can't. 

Do you believe it? It's legit but I reckon it needs an explanation!

The reason that I can't is because the majority of what consumes my mind I have wanted to blog about aren't topics that I can share with the world. The internet causes a difficult balance of wanting to be transparent but remembering that being transparent on the internet means that you are transparent to EVERYONE in the ENTIRE WORLD! There are certain things that I wouldn't mind sharing with everyone but my students or everyone but co-workers or everyone but this particular group of people or another. It's not that I have awful thoughts swarming in my head or even a desire to vent, it's just that I wish I had the ability to keep what I write on here from being blabbed to the world a little more confidential than I can.

I digress.

Married life. Ever since Christmas [there's a topic I could chat about as well I guess], I have had about 0.0000000001 motivation to do any sort of house work! It's not that I enjoy living in a tornado scene, which I am not, but what's it really going to hurt if things are out of place and a few too many dishes are laying around? Nothing really, right? My excuse that I get to use for not too much longer is that Chris and his papa are working on building shelves to make a pantry like storage area. They tore out all the old, not so functional shelving in the room off the garage and put in a new door a couple weeks ago. Last night Wy joined them for putting up the majority of the shelving and now there is only one more wall to go! Wa-hoo!! Soon [hopefully] all of the canned and boxed food items that are in bags on the kitchen floor, miscellaneous small appliances, and all the junk lovely stuff that is filling the garage causing no room for a car will all have a lovely home in the new pantry!! THEN we'll finally be able to bring home our deep freeze Christmas present from my 'rents to fill up with delicious food! Maybe then I will be motivated to keep things a bit more organized... doubt it, but perhaps.

A second note on married life. I realized today that kind of "poisoned" Chris... completely unintentional of course! A week or so ago I made chili for the first time and I bought dry kidney beans to use in it. [Note to all: I have never made chili before and I have never used dried beans before!] Well I read the instructions on the beans bag and it said something about soaking them overnight to soften them, then rinsing them and THEN use them however you please. Well since I was going to be making the chili the night before in the Crockpot, I figured this would eliminate the need to soak them. I figured wrong. Despite the beans soaking in the Crockpot overnight and then cooking all day long, they were a bit "crunchy" when we ate supper Monday night. Me being the pickier eater and not afraid to not eat something if I don't like it, I got out a little plastic cup and with each spoonful of chili I would spit out all the crunchy beans! This was quite easy as when I was younger I didn't like the squishiness of kidney beans and didn't eat them then either. Well Chris will eat anything even if it's gross and he didn't really mind the crunchiness so after doctoring the soup up a bit with Hot Sauce he ate a couple bowls.

Fast-forward to the next morning. Chris was peeing out his butt had some stomach issues and clung to the toilet multiple times before leaving for work at 11am. We blamed it on the hot sauce because I only tried a bite of his [and didn't like it so didn't eat any more] and I didn't have any "issues".

Fast-forward again to last night/this morning. Chris ate some on the leftover chili before bed last night while I was satisfied with my Dora Fruit Snacks late night snack. Of course he didn't add any Hot Sauce this time and thought everything would be good. Well this morning, he woke and you guess it his urethra and rectum were once again confused! Since I suspected it was the beans that caused this issue, I did a little technical research and googled it! :) Sure enough eating undercooked kidney beans is actually quite bad! Whoops. There is actually such a thing as Kidney Bean Poisoning which is caused by Phytohaemagglutnin which is a toxin that can affect someone after consuming as few as 5 undercooked kidney beans. I'm just thankful that he didn't have the vomiting like the websites described!!

Lesson learned. I'll use canned beans, that is if he ever dares to let me venture to make chili again!