***This post is not for everyone***

So, yup........I'm back!!!!!!  Its been so long since I've used this blog that i actually forgot all about it.  I reread some of my old posts and what awesome memories it brought back. I will say I have changed since those posts (as most of us do over years), but the essence of me is still there.   I'm going to do my best to write everyday, but I can not tell a lie!  I am so very bad at writing everyday.  But, there is 100% honesty in these words, I will try!

I said this post is not for everyone because one of my 3 things is a feminine thing and its a thing that a lot of people wont understand.  So, I started my menses today and it was excruciating.  I spent most of the day in bed. To make it worse, I re-injured my knee yesterday. So the pain was all around. I had a moment where I realized, all this complaining is doing nothing to help the situation.  I decided to try an awareness/consciousness thing I've been learning about. I just stopped, actually focused on the pain in my abdomen, instead of complaining about it I went to it, with love and compassion.  Took a few deep breathes and just let it be, instead of resisting it.  I felt all the abdominal and upper thigh muscles that I was clenching in pain, soften.  2 wonderful things happened; 1st the pain did actually lessen. And 2nd, I realized and accepted that this is just part of being a woman. Accepted is the key word here.  I focused on my uterus and just thought about and felt nothing but gentle love and directed it there. All of a sudden, I loved being a woman. I felt proud to be experiencing this moment. It meant I am alive and functioning as God wants me to. I cant really put it into words, but it was definitely a pivotal moment for me. And, I am very proud, and happy, to say I haven't had one single pain since!  I would love to hear if any of you, or anyone you know, have ever tried this or are planning to and what your experience was like.

My 2nd beautiful thing is the beautiful moth I saw this morning while waiting for the school bus with my son. It was small and colored like a butterfly, black, orange, and white. At first I thought it was dead, caught in a spider web.  But it wasnt. I was relieved. My son loved it too. It was nice seeing it because the last month we have seen so many caterpillars everywhere on our yard. I'm assuming he came from one of those we saw.  Every time I see one, especially struggling or in a dangerous spot, I try to help it get where it needs to go. They all seem to cacoon in the same general area. 

My 3rd beautiful thing was the time I spent with my son watching a movie he loves, "Mr. Peabody & Sherman".  Once again, I can not tell a lie, I do enjoy this movie too! I just love spending time with my kids.  Having 3, I feel its important to make individual time with each of them.  So that was our thing we did just the 2 of us today.
Well, today I decided to not do anything.  So for my 1st thing, that would be it.  I took a break all day from household chores.  Some husbands just don't understand how important it is for moms/wives to take these much needed breaks.  Thanks hubby for not bitching about it all day.  :)

For my 2nd thing:  It would be amongst my day of doing nadda, I took 2 1hr. naps.  That was especially nice.  Again, thanks honey.

For my 3rd thing:  It was dinner with my parents and brother/sister in-law.  We went out to eat at a new chinese buffet in town.  It was delicious.  My brother works at a local fresh seafood market and delivers thier fresh seafood to them, so hes the one who recommended it. It was so great!  Thanks Paul and Mom.

Well, again my first thing was my "me time" this morning. I was feeling a little "blue" so I made myself a most delicious white caramel and mocha cappaccino. That definitely hit the spot right off the bat. Then as I watched the sun come up, I wondered, how many other people are watching this exact sunrise with me. And, I was wondering if the sunrise means to other people what it does to me. Of course not, right? We all have our own thing. Then, I started thinking, why is the sunrise so important to me EVERY single day. Because, it is. If I miss it one morning, my whole day is ruined, I just cant get going and get happy. No matter what mood I'm in, the sunrise always takes everything away and makes everything ok for me and I'm instantly happy. Does anyone else ever feel that? I think for me, all the stereotypical things apply: 1. It signals the start of a new day, everything from yesterday is done, its over with and you cant get it back. The good with the bad. 2. The color yellow makes me feel VERY happy and lighthearted and good spirited. 3. And, its time to wake up, get going. Ya know, we all only get one day, each day to make that day mean something for us and others. We can use it wasting away in our own sorrows or we can get up, get out and make a difference. It doesn't matter whos difference your making - just make one. At the end of every day we should all be able to lay our heads down and say, "Now that's how you live a day"! I can happily say that today.

For my next thing: if you are on my FB page then you know I do post card stuff - www.postcrossing.com. This has become my most favorite hobby and I so look forward to it every day as well. Well today we (Joe and I) had nothing to do so we decided to just go for a drive. We ended up in Vero Beach, about 1/2 hr. North. We decided to do some window shopping and just enjoy Vero - it is a nice place. One store we walked in had a most beautiful postcard display. I was in heaven! So right away everything around me just disappears and I'm in tunnel vision straight to the display immediately scanning for new postcards of Florida to send that I dont already have. Now lately, I've been having a hard time finding new ones, so I'm on a postcard hunt constantly. Anyway, I was very happy to find several that I have not yet had the pleasure of temporarily owning. Luckily for me, my wonderful, always there for me husband had a $5. bill in his pocket. So yeah!!!!! I could get them. So our do-nothing window shopping day turned into a goldmine for me.

Lastly: If you can believe this a cold front came through FL last night and the weather was absolutely gorgeous today, windows open, breeze blowin, perfect weather. Which btw, I am sitting outside writing this right now and totally loving the weather. It is perfect, reminds me of beautiful Charleston, SC. So anyway, we were all walking to the dumpster and mailbox as the sun had started its decend behind the trees and I just felt like I wanted to go for a walk. It was almost 8:00p.m. and the I start the kids bedtime routine at that time, bathes, snacks, clean-up and all that jazz. Well my Mr. Always There For Me said (because he's the rule maker and enforcer) come on lets go. I asked, just to double check I was hearing correctly, and yup he said come on lets go enjoy this weather and the kids can go to bed an hour later tonight so we dont have to rush walking or getting settled down when we get back. So we went and it was PERFECT! I can not tell you how beautiful and perfect the weather was at this time. We all had a great time!

Today wasnt all that great either. I woke up feeling sick as a dog, so, I ended up calling out of work, I didnt want to but I had to. I couldnt breathe out of my mouth or nose I was so congested, I was sick to my stomach and my body just ached everywhere. Actually me taking off from work could be one of my things because I took off to let myself rest and heal. My next thing could be my nap I took, again to let my body rest and heal. My 3rd thing would be my morning on the porch, it was really nice because my kids were up and they got to see the piglets for the first time. I'm sorry to cut this short, but I am really tired.
Sorry for not posting this weekend, but Friday was a REALLY bad day and I honestly couldn't think of anything for that day. So sorry again, but no post for Friday.

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I made a decision that I have been thinking about for the past couple of days - I am going to include the same thing everyday as 1 of my 3 beautiful things. I know that sounds like cheating or something, but this one thing is something that I do everyday for myself that really is really just for me and it is the most important part of my day. Every morning I sit on my back porch with this laptop and drink a few cups of coffee and smoke a few cigarettes. I just sit here and do things online like catch up on my email and other blogs I read everyday and so forth. And I just enjoy the nature around me, I live right on the edge of a forest so there is a lot of nature around me, mostly just birds, owls, and wild hogs. I just sit here and watch them all and enjoy my time alone as the sun comes up. I'm usually out here around 5am or so and I stay out here until the baby wakes up, usually around 9am or so. So i figured I have to include this as one of my 3 beautiful things because it is so important to me and like I said the best part of everyday for me. And I'll just tell you about my thoughts and what I see sitting here, I hope its not a turn off and I hope you dont think its cheating.
Since I wrote all that and it is Thursday morning now I wont go into details about my reflections yesterday except to tell you what I saw. Yesterday the mama hog and her 6 piglets visited me early. They usually show up around 6:30-7am for a few minutes and I usually see them every couple of days or so. Well yesterday they were early and only 3 piglets came out. They normally all come out to my bird feeder and eat whats on the ground or root right by the edge of the trees. I could here mama and the rest in the woods, but didnt see them. It worries a bit, just because I hope they are all ok. The piglets are so cute, my favorite one is a brown one with black spots. He's kind of like the blacksheep of the family. Hes the only one with spots and hes kind of a loner, I guess thats why hes my fav. I'm kind of a loner and the black sheep of my family. I know it sounds crazy, but I can feel something from him, like an auroa (sorry dont know how to spell it) or something. He and I made eye contact one day and it was almost blissful. I know that sounds nuts and no I'm not trying to be a pig whisperer or something. It was just something very real. So anyway I hope they're all ok and I hope I see all of them today.
My next thing is a pretty major thing for me as well. I stood up for myself at work lastnight, which is not usually me. I am usually such a passive person that I'm usually everyones doormat. But lastnight my boss was telling me and another person that I wasnt doing something that I was doing. So I stood my ground and did what I had to do until I was able to prove the truth. Well once the truth was revealed I was appologized to and actually given props for the fact that I was doing it so well. Ok see, I work at Food Lion as a cashier and we are supposed to greet every customer that walks in, "Hi, welcome to Food Lion, bla bla bla". Well the big boss was telling my supervisor that myself and another girl were not greeting people. Now first of all, I took this job because I like working with the public and I enjoy talking to people. And I know how important it is to them that we do this. They make it very clear to us that Food Lion wants the public to feel at home and very welcomed once they walk in the door. Now no matter what my job is I always take pride in what I do. So I make sure I greet people, granted I may not greet everyone, but I certainly do try. Ya know, if I'm engaged in conversation with my customer at the register its kind of hard to greet someone else. Especially if I am talking at the exact moment when a patron walks in. I mean am I wrong for not understanding how to talk to 2 different people at the same exact moment? Besides I feel its rude to stop talking to my customer just to greet someone else, especially if another cashier has already greeted this same person. Anyway, I made it very clear to them that I was greeting people, as many as I could, and I told them I'm not about to be reprimanded for something that I am doing well. My supervisor just kept saying, "well just do it ok?" I kept saying, "no, I am doing it!" Anyway about an hour later I still wasnt stopping until I finally got both of them to look at the tapes of me at the front. And they both saw that I was greeting as many customers as I could while taking care of my customers at my register. They both apologized and told me that I was actually doing a good job and it was the other cashier who was not doing hers. This was a big step for me because normally I would just say ok, ok, whatever. But for some reason I was not about to go down for something that I was already doing and that I felt I was already doing well. So it felt good to stand up for myself and I think I"ll be doing more of that. This is thanks to Priscilla, my counselor for teaching me that its not ok to be walked on and that I should stand up for my job well done. So thank you Priscilla.
My 3rd thing was also work related. Another employee asked if her and I could switch shifts. She was to leave at 9pm and I was to leave at 11pm. She wanted to stay until 11 and asked if I would leave at 9pm. So I thought about and I realized how exhausted I was and agreed. So I took care of myself first and came home and went to bed early and caught up on some much needed sleep.