2024 Happy Blog Challenge Continues

Happy Boxing Day! Here are some happy things from my day. This morning, early, I had a mental list of the things I wanted to get accomplished. It was too early to do any of those things so I let myself be distracted by games, reading, and my Amazon Wishlist. Later, I went to spend time with the family. It was a relaxing day. Around 4:30 in the afternoon I suddenly realized that I had goals for the day that I didn’t do! A few internet searches later and I was out the door. The dealership was still open so I could purchase a new gas cap for my car, yay! This is the day that the town office is open until seven so I got my car registered, yay! I made an appointment to get my brakes fixed tomorrow morning, yay! Perhaps next time I have important, time sensitive items to do I will write them down or set an alarm on my phone so I don’t forget.  😂 The sky as I headed to the town offices. The reason I needed a gas cap was because my check engine light turned on and that was the si...

Merry Christmas!  Happy Hanukkah! Happy Whatever-you-do-on-this-day Day! Here are some happy highlights from my day: The rest of the family got up much later than I did.  Eventually everyone had eaten and presents were exchanged.  All the gifts were wonderful, however, Gideon won Christmas this year.  He created a scavenger hunt for Keziah that included us all.  Keziah got the first clue and each of us had a piece of the map and key.  "Gnomes" had hidden clues around the place and we had to find them.  Each clue had a gnome that Gideon had made, a gift for someone, and another clue.  Gideon did such a good job.  He used hints, YouTube, and the app What3Words to help lead us to the next clue.  We had a blast! My stocking haul.  They were all similar. That stocking of mine is almost as old as I am. There is a company that makes shirts based on old stores that have gone out of business.  My mom used to work for both Zayre and Ames...

Here are some happy things from today: Every week I get a message from FitBit about my step count for the week.  Often I ignore it.  I decided to look at it today.  I used to work hard to reach a 10,000 step a day goal.  Now I try to be happy if I get to 70,000 in a week.  I spent most of Sunday in bed with this cold and I still reached 70,000 steps for the week.  All the steps I get at work make a big difference (over 20,000 today).   I'm glad I looked at the notification and saw my totals. Things at work got so busy today that I worked just under twelve hours.  They gave everyone a gift that stayed late today.  That was really nice.  We also got an extra $50 if we worked our full shift.   On Christmas Eve we have had a tradition of gifting holiday books.  This year the book I received was An Anishinaabe Christmas by Wab Kinew.  It is about an Indigenous (in Canada) family that travels home to the reservation f...

Yesterday seems to have been the worst day of this cold.  It went from -maybe an allegry- to -ugh- overnight.  It is far from gone, but better than yesterday. Here are some happy things from today: Tonight, I am supposed to work. That is my intention. That meant shopping for cold meds today. It was good to get out of the house, even though it is very cold. I wore a mask and wandered around a couple stores for stocking stuffer style gifts. If I was out, I may as well look for things. The important cold medication was not forgotten, so hopefully, I will be all set for tonight. Keziah called to let me know about some of the people that came to the party yesterday. That was nice to hear. It was a game playing party and Gideon apparently did awesome playing Bananagrams. He was rightfully proud for forming the word sequoia.  My friend Stephanie and her husband brought their dog.  Keziah said that he was well behaved.   Bel brought over the birthday cook...

 December 21st at 4:20 AM was the official time of Solstice.  I woke up shortly before that time and was not able to get back to sleep.  I let things distract me.  Exhaustion aside, here are some happy things from this cold Winter Solstice: Keziah got me earrings as a Solstice gift (or birthday or Christmas gift).  It has been a while since I have worn earrings, but I got them in.   Keziah and I went to the mall in the morning.  For the last Saturday before Christmas, it wasn't too busy. Keziah had a package she had ordered that needed to be picked up or we wouldn't have gone.  While there, we also looked through the Manchester Craft Market.  It is a store filled with arts and crafts from local artisans.  Two of the artisans I actually know.  It is nice that there is a place where local people can sell their crafts.  Photo credit to Keziah.  We got breakfast from Cinnabon.  That was delicious.  After that we...

Here are some happy Monday things: There is a state surplus store in Concord, NH that is only open occasionally.  We visited there this morning so Keziah could look for shelves for her store.  We were also hoping to find some hiking supplies.  They had a bunch of used trekking poles.  Many were $10 a pair.  I convinced Bel to try some.  Since they were buy one pair, get another for free, I got another set as backup.  I also got a couple knives that might work for carving.  They were cheap enough and I am sure they will get used.   Bel and I did some shopping for hiking things.  We picked up two different types of water filtering systems and some other things at REI.  We will get to test them out before our trip.   There were two different people today that complimented me on my sweatshirt.  It is actually an older one that belonged to my mom.  It is holiday/winter themed so it doesn't get worn often.  I...

In a few days it will be my birthday.  Soon after that is Christmas.  I'm not ready for either of these things.  However, today my daughter, Keziah, gave me an experience as a gift.  I was able to attend a spoon making class.  https://www.leespoons.com/ In the SCA we have the Forester's Guild.  One of the steps in the guild is making your own spoon.  Seeing someone making one a few years ago is what started to spark my interest in carving a spoon.  Here are some happy things from today and that class:  The teacher, Lee, demonstrated how to use a saw, hatchet and a froe to cut the wood into the rough shape for a spoon.  After that we used a wood carving straight knife and curved knife to form the shape of the spoon.  I'm sure there are more appropriate names to the knives that I am forgetting.  There was a lot of knowledge and skill that he tried to impart in a few hours.  We didn't leave with a finished spoon.  I real...

Happy things from today: For the fourth day in a row I was in the Problem Solve area at work. It has changed a lot this week. Because of snow and other random things the beginning of the week had an excessive amount of work. Thankfully, they started assigning more people to work there and we have been able to get all those packages processed, the area cleaned, and all but a few items that I didn't know how to dispose of in the hazardous waste area are cleaned up. Since I am not working a full shift tomorrow, I took a nap this afternoon. My dad used to take naps a lot in the afternoons when he wasn’t working. When I learned that was not something that most other father’s did, I thought it was weird. Over the years I have learned that naps are a wonderful thing. Today I was home to greet Gideon when he was home from school. Then I napped and got up in time to spend time with the rest of the family when they got home from their day jobs. The adults finally got to see the swea...

Happy Monday! This morning after breakfast Keziah, Bel, and I did a quick cleanup of the kitchen and porch. Tomorrow there will be a new dishwasher installed. Things got moved and a trip to the dump was made. There is less cardboard to be recycled in the apartment now too. I’m looking forward to the new dishwasher. We also brought the futon that Keziah picked up last week to the studio as well as more fabric. The new-to-us futon looks like it will be more comfortable than the last one. Then we went to DIY Craft & Thrift to put more merchandise on the floor. I put some holiday things out and then I had to leave for an appointment at the DMV. My driver’s license expires in ten days and I forgot to do it by mail. It was good to be able to help out at the store some. I don’t get there as often as I thought I would. Since I totally forgot to take pictures of the things we did and progress that was made, I’ve taken a picture of one of the flowers on my wall. It is snowing out ...

A few things happened today that I am not happy about. I lost my work badge (that I use to enter the building and clock in on) and my car didn't pass inspection. This is not the place for that. Here are some happy Friday things: The work day went by fast. Probably because I was in the Problem Solve area. It is always a good thing when the ten hour work day feels short. There are some new-to-me songs that are being played at work. One of them is a song from Japan that sounds really familiar. It was originally released in 1979 in Japan but apparently has become popular again thanks to the internet. I still have no reason that it should sound familiar, except that it sounds very 1970's. 🙃 Anyway, it made for interesting conversations at work. My big happy thing for today is that Bel is here! They were supposed to be here before Thanksgiving but had car problems. They still have car problems, so they took a bus. Bel will be helping Keziah at the store over the holiday...