There's A Day for Everything!September

One might say I am quirky (most call me weird). However, in my book, it is perfectly okay to embrace each day as if it is special. In fact, I am going out in search of the special in each day. If you know of one I haven't found, please do share.



myMike and Me

September (National Honey Month)
 
  First Monday--Labor Day
  First Sunday after Labor Day--Grandparent's Day
  1--Calendar Adjustment Day
  2--V-J Day
  3--Skyscraper Day and MyMike's birthday!
  4--Newspaper Carrier Day (so please take a day off guy who throws a paper at my lawn every other day)
  5--Be Late for Something Day (bahahaha!)
  6--Don't Procrastinate Day
  7--Salami Day
  8--International Literacy Day
  9--Teddy Bear Day

Me and Darling Daughter

10--Sewing Machine Day and TV Dinner Day
11--Remembrance Day aka Patriot Day
12--Chocolate Milkshake Day
13--Positive Thinking Day and Peanut Day
14--Stand Up to Cancer Day
15--Greenpeace Day
16--Step Family Day and Play-Dough Day
17--Constitution Day
18--National Cheeseburger Day
19--Talk Like A Pirate Day

ARRRGyle the Sock Pirate

20--In honor of this being self-improvement month, do something for yourself!
21--International Peace Day and Packer's Birthday!
22--First Day of Autumn, Elephant Appreciation Day, and Mike and Jeremy Get Married!
23--Presidential Dog Day
24--National Punctuation Day
25--Mary Poppins Day and Comic Book Day and One Hit Wonder Day
26--Johnny Appleseed Day (sing along! "oh the Lord's been good to me, and so I thank the Lord, for giving me the things I need like the sun and the rain and the apple seed")
27--Tourism Day
Fourth Friday--Native Indian/American Day

Packer and Thing 1 in 2009

28--First Born Nephew Day (yeah! I made this one up but it's real to me! Love you Thing 1!)
29--Heck yeah! COFFEE DAY y'all
30--In honor of September being Better Breakfast month, take your spouse to breakfast today.

Please share if you know of a special day in September that I need to include!

August 24--Have A Peach Waffle and Listen to Some Crazy Beats...Then Call This Day Celebrated

Holy all things in a hurry...so much has been going on that I haven't had a chance to pause long enough to update the blog! Last week, I became a teacher again! After waiting till day before yesterday for the FBI to give me the go-for-it, I hit the ground running at the speed of light since the first day of school is this coming Monday. I am thrilled to be heading back into my heart career. I am so unprepared at this point that I am running on pure "this has to get done" juice.

It's Friday! Since everyday is a celebration, it's perfect to combine the greatness of today and say, "Have a waffle slathered in peaches while listening to some crazy music and call today CELEBRATED!"

Here's some fun crazy to get you in the spirit...I LOVE GENIUS THAT TAKES A SONG THAT HAS BEEN PLAYED TO CLICHE AND MAKES IT FUN AGAIN!

Happy Birthday, Sister...You will always be loved.

Gayla Leeanne, born of James and Brenda on August 21, 1972. She was a perfect little guinea pig first child. She taught us all how to love unconditionally and give whole heartedly. Sister was taken way too early from our family on March 19, 2011. Thirty-eight years, six months and 26 days will never be enough time to to explain what she meant to not only us but to every life she touched.

I thank my parents for giving Bubba and I the perfect big sister. She embraced us for our little weirdnesses and loved us anyway. Gayla was the perfect aunt for my darling daughter. She loved her as if she were of our blood and bone. Sister went out of her way to support our little family and be a part of all the little milestones.

Say a little prayer on August 21 and have a toast, some birthday cake, and embrace the day for the beautiful woman who God made for us to love forever.

1 PART REPOST/1 PART UPDATE: August 16--Happy Roller Coaster Day

Happy Roller Coaster Day! A little more than a year ago, I shared a story of my fear of roller coasters. A little more than two weeks ago, I was riding that first booger, Space Mountain, once again. That's me with the big screaming mouth!  Today is the anniversary of these little bits of crazy.

Repost from May 20, 2011:

Remember the blog on FEAR? Well, Space Mountain is another time I let my Gayla drag me into something kicking and screaming. When we were 13 and 15, respectively, Mama and Daddy took us to Disney World. Sister had one goal...Space Mountain! Being a chicken in every respect, I so did NOT want to ride a roller coaster.

I made Gayla promise the ride would not go upside down. She promised! Then she and I stood in line for an hour and a half. All the while, Gayla was beaming with excitement and I was listening to the screams of terror emitted from the pitch dark right above our heads.

Finally! It was our turn. I thought I might throw up as Gayla skipped to the little car where she claimed the front seat. I sat directly behind her, wrapped my arms around her real tight, and buried my head. Then, for the next 60 seconds, I screamed like a banshee right in sister's ear as we were zipped around in all directions in complete darkness.

At the end of the ride, when the lights go red as your ship is "landing," I think I hollered, "Oh, God! We're dead! We're in hell!" Gayla whipped around, glared at me with venom, and screamed at me, "You ruined it!" I felt horrible and tried to apologize. However, she would have none of it. To make it up to her, one of our parents stayed with her to stand in line and ride it without me while the other took me and Bubba to the Tea Cups.

I found a video of the ride with the lights on and have included the link so you can see how lame it looks with the lights on. Plus, I swear we were going faster than the video shows. Goes to show you, everything is scarier in the dark.

August 15--NOT Best Friends Day; Happy Relaxation Day, Yo!

My beloved sister Gayla with two of our besties, M & J.

If you've been following this blog for the last few days, then you know that today is BEST FRIENDS DAY! I think this is everyday but who am I to snub a celebration of the ones you love! Well, I might have been mistaken, which is only made worse by the fact that I cannot recreate my error in where I found my info. In addition to Google, Yahoo, and Fun Holidays, Holiday Insights says this day is June 8. I am still going to a tasting with my best friends today for their wedding and commitment ceremony. So booyah!

Bestie Sosie with me in NOLA.

Today IS National Relaxation Day. Oh, what to do, what to do! I don't know if I'll have time to book a massage, my favorite form of relaxation. However, I might be able to persuade the Hubby Dearest to give me a foot massage. Have I mentioned that I am SPOILED well loved?!

How do you relax?

August 14--International Nagging Day

There's not a person alive who hasn't doggedly tried to influence another person to act as they would wish. Wives, husbands...you know mothers take a class in nagging. It's secretly given in home-ec and Lamaze classes when no one is paying attention. I know I will have to give my woman card up after revealing that little fact. Since I didn't learn to be a real pain in the petooty in either way, and my mother is nowhere near the nag that I am, I am not sure where I learned this little tool of persuasion (or dissuasion depending on with whom you are dealing).

Perfect example: I have spent the better part of this summer "persuading" ad nasuem our Darling Daughter to assist with keeping our home tidy. At times, my kind reminding has brought about frustrated, teeth gritting, animalistic sounds from the girl child, which push that button in me that take me from kind reminder to full on head wiggling and phrases such as, "I KNOW YOU DID NOT JUST GROWL AT ME, LITTLE GIRL!"

To that end, Hubby Dearest swoops in and tries to make peace. This makes me even more mad because it feels like a gang up on the Mama moment. What do I do? I give up. Now HD is doing the friendly reminding. EVERY. SINGLE. DANG. DAY. Now HE is the nag and the girly doesn't growl at him...SHE JUST IGNORES HIS REQUESTS as if he never asked her to do a thing. With a little more volume and a lot less head wiggling, HD now understands my frustrations.

I'll definitely lose my privileges in the woman club for this, but here's the 4-1-1...NAGGING DOES NOT WORK! Do you want to know why it is ineffective? Nagging makes your target feel picked-on, put-down, defensive, resentful, and disrespected. No one would be gracious or persuaded if this is how they were made to feel.

We tried a different tact last night. Both HD and I expressed how DD's lack of response makes us FEEL. I told her I felt like she had no respect for us or our home when our requests where ignored. I explained that it upset me because she wants us to give, give, give, and she wants to take, take, take, and eventually the coffers are depleted and there is no more to give. Her father agreed that that is how he felt as well.

Sticking with why we wanted her to assist with the house, we explained that we NEED her help because after long days at work, we just couldn't find the time to do chores, cook dinner, and have any kind of free time like going ice skating, something that she enjoys. We tried desperately to curb our "lecture" response and most importantly, the entire time we were talking, both HD and I were tidying up (loading dishes in the dishwasher, making dinner, etc.), teaching by example.

Furthermore, we gave a lot of time for DD to respond with how she was feeling. This is vital, naggers....FIND OUT WHY YOU ARE BEING IGNORED! Of course, DD's response to the question of WHY she was ignoring us was, "I just don't want to do chores...I like being lazy." This is where great self-control comes in because you CANNOT just react to that statement. Best advice, just stare at her like she said the dirtiest dirty word in the books. Eventually she continues to state, "That's not a good answer." DUH!

It's International Nagging Day. Will you treat this as an AWARENESS day where you try to curb your need to nag? Or do you have intentions to go on a full-scale, all-out nag-a-thon today? How do you operate? Share, share, share.

There's a Day for Everything!August

One might say I am quirky (most call me weird). However, in my book, it is perfectly okay to embrace each day as if it is special. In fact, I am going out in search of the special in each day. If you know of one I haven't found, please do share.

August (National Napping Month)


Gal Pals Celebrating the Day


  1--National Girlfriends Day
  2--National Ice Cream Sandwich Day
  3--National Watermelon Day
  4--National Chocolate Chip Day
  5--National Mustard Day AND National Waffle Day (separate...not together...ewww)
  First Sunday in August--Sister's Day (See what I have to say...)
  9--National Book Lovers Day
10--S'Mores Day

Sisters

11--Play in the Sand Day
12--Middle Children's Day
13--International Left-Hander's Day
14--International Nagging Day (to name one of many specialities of the day)
15--Best Friends Day UPDATE JUNE 8; National Relaxation Day
16--Roller Coaster Day
17--
18--Bad Poetry Day
19--National Aviation Day
20--National Radio Day

Peaches for the Pie

THIRD SATURDAY--National Homeless Animals Day
21--My Sister Gayla's Birthday
22--Be An Angel Day
23--National Sponge Cake Day
24--National Waffle Day (There's a debate...this could be August 5), National Peach Pie Day, and Strange Music Day
25--Kiss and Make Up Day, National Banana Split Day
26--National Dog Day
27--
28--

29--
30--National Toasted Marshmallow Day
31--National Trail Mix Day

What will you do to celebrate each day?

National Book Lovers Day

Pinterest.com

HAPPY NATIONAL BOOK LOVERS DAY!

Somewhere around the time I fell in love with books and reading, our elementary school's library, which was a metal portable building, also found itself the home of a birthing mother skunk. Chalk it up to books holding the strong stench in their pages for years, but the library was never the same. Nevertheless, I still fell head over heels in love with reading. Even today, whenever we are driving around the country and a skunk is nearby, I think of that library of yesteryear and reading.

Okay, some might say I have forsaken my books of paper pages and leather binding for my kindle and iPad. However, I say that I have simply solved my issue of trying to carry all my interests around in one bag. I still mosey through the book store in search of that perfect combination of hardback and strong story line. I am always in search of my "classics" in real books to have and to hold forever, amen. However, eReaders make partaking of certain trashy novels (you know which ones) a little more convenient by not shouting to the world, "YES! I READ SMUTTY TRASH TOO!" Oh wait...I guess I just did. Oh well!

I love the book store experience. I also adore getting a whim to read and being able to download my desired object of affection within a minute without leaving the comfort of my bed or my pjs. I am enthralled by reading, escaping to the next adventure while waiting to switch out the laundry.

Where do you stand? Are you a reader? Books/EReaders? Fiction/Non-fiction? What was your first book?

NOTE: My mama says The Pokey Little Puppy was my favorite as a child. I remember the first chapter book I ever read from cover to cover was a biography of Helen Keller. My favorite book of all time is To Kill a Mockingbird. I am currently reading Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and The Lucky One.

I Belong to You...You Belong to Me

In the 60s and 70s the joke was that you had to sit and suffer through your friends' slide shows or home movies of their vacation. Today's rendering is being bombarded with their status updates on Facebook showing the oh-so-wonderful time they are having. Yep! I am one of those braggers.

It is with great joy in my heart that I put together this love-filled video of our LA vacation. Hubby Dearest, Darling Daughter and Friend Dew are my heart, my joy, and my laughter. I hope they take this time together forward in their lives and remember always that J-Me Mama loves every minute we spend together. I belong to them and they belong to me...for infinity.

NOTE: If it looks like we have some old pics in there, we do. The girls were eating cotton candy while we waited in line for the Haunted Mansion. I snapped their antics and then remembered I had similar photos from when they were in elementary school. I included them to show how these gals are becoming beautiful young women who have the same hearts for fun as when they were my little bits.

Cali-forn-I-A!

After thirty-some-odd years of dreaming and wishing and hoping, guess who is finally traveling past the western Texas border! That's right! This gal! Luckily there has been much to do so time is zipping past! I am finally heading to Cali! On the list for the weekend...Disney Land and Disney Adventure Park, Universal Studios, seeing the Ocean, and the TMZ tour. Since we're going in the summer, my other dream of meeting Ellen DeGeneres will have to wait until the NEXT trip to LA-LA land. I'll keep my eyes peeled though...yes sir-eee! Where do you plan to visit someday as part of your bucket list?