Monday is what you make it.

Good Morning Smile Warriors

Give Negativity the
RASPBERRY!

It's Monday, October 28^th, 2013 and I know you don't think there is anything good about a Monday.

This probably means you hate your job. You hate getting up early to go to work. So, I wonder, have you ever wondered how you got into this. The very fact that you spend the majority of your life hating what you spend the majority of your life doing means the system is seriously wrong and you are equally wrong for putting up with it. You are just making everyone miserable so maybe while we are smiling out there, we should really think about fixing things so we are happy 24/7.

I am not going to say I have had a wonderful weekend. There are people and energies out there that simply hate anyone who raises their vibration past the commonly miserable one. Yes, I am afraid if you haven't encountered it, you will as old Mercury is Retrograde and that my friends makes what goes around, come around and slap you up side the head. I found a good article on Facebook about how people who work to raise their vibration and push out of the mundane box often find themselves attacked for no obvious reason. It then went on to discuss the reasons people would attack you. It boils down to jealousy. They know deep down they want to be happy. They want to feel good and when they see someone who empowers themselves, who is happy and who is living not the high life but the good life, they have to take them down a notch or two and make them as miserable as they are. They refuse to admit they are the ones who have failed themselves. They have to show them the error of living their life the way they want to live it because after all my friends, it is Monday. You should be miserable. No, there is no reason you should be smiling at them and it will totally destroy them and their little black cloud of despair. Our job is to lift them out of the mundane for a moment or two, not join them there. Always remember that.

As to me, well as I said I know some very sorry, pitiful, miserable people who thought for some reason that if they could imitate, steal my life or just stay around me, their lives would be wonderful. For some there was the shock that I actually worked. When you have a store as I used to have, you have to keep regular hours and can't just take off for shopping in the middle of the afternoon. You have to keep your appointments and if you work for someone, you have to show up. Yup, that really shocked a few people. If money grows on trees, I haven't found the right botanical species, yet. For some reason, the power company, phone company and all the rest refuse to take good vibes as payment for their products. There are a lot of people who think I should take good vibes as payment for my services. Well, good vibes are nice but they don't keep a roof over your head or get you dinner.

Others were shocked that I have my bad moods and bad days. Just being around me didn't solve a single one of their problems. They simply didn't understand that life is a DIY. No one can make you happy. We, Smile Warriors, can give you a lift, but you have keep yourself up there. We just provide the example and the incentive by showing what kind is like and how it feels. I just met a whole bunch of Smile Warriors due to efforts of a few of these little black holes of doom and gloom.

Huh, you say. Well, it works like this. Ruin the holidays and my usual work/income for the really fun holiday of the year and I will be reduced to miserable. Now this is how it really worked out for me. I wasn't doing the usual Witches' Ball this year because we are working on remodeling and I am having a lot of dental work done. So the little 'cause problems at home spell' hit our well and we had no water on the night of the Ball which we weren't going to anyway so no one needed a shower. Thus, I just booked a couple of nights at my favorite hotel where I get high speed internet, cool a/c and a wonderful free breakfast George doesn't have to cook and I don't need to wash up after. If the black holes of negativity hadn't worked so hard to ruin things, I would not have slept on a wonderful bed with light fluffy pillows and no cats to share it with, but please don't tell them. I wouldn't have met a bunch of Smile Warriors whose job is to lift your mood and get you out the door with a smile on your face. Yes, hotels pay people to be Smile Warriors but don't get your hopes up because this little group of us isn't paying, yet. Oh, and I am enjoying a really good cup of coffee I didn't have to make, either. I have gathered a bunch of cups and plastic glasses that will become plant pots when I get home. Freebie recycles are always a plus.

Now, everyone stick your tongues out at the negativity and give it a big old raspberry. Oh, and AARP saved me money on the room! I think I'll just chuckle for a while. You can't defeat us. We have learned the secret of happy and everything you do will just transform into happy. We needed to work on the well set up anyway and the weather is perfect. Oh, let me put a cherry on this sundae. While getting the supplies to fix the well, we found a good pump on sale at a great price so now we have an extra if the one at the shop or house kicks the bucket....okay...that was a bit of a pun, but I think I'm allowed.

To recap, you have a choice. You can be a black hole of need and all the crap in the Universe will rain into your hole upon your head or you can be Smile Warrior and instead of crap, good things fall on your head no matter how negative they start out. Yes my friends, life is good. Let's go forth and make it a little better for the rest of the world. As to me, I am smiling and joking with the paid Smile Warriors here at the hotel and getting ready to try a little Facebook and Farmville before going home to work..and I know I'll have a nice clean room, free coffee and some food we scrounged from the breakfast room. No one is really here on Monday, anyway....no point in letting a good chocolate muffin go to waste....I forgot something. On the way back from Lowes, we stopped to get some filtered water and I ran into Western Meats for some of the GREAT orange juice you find in the veggie department. On the way out, I detoured to the bakery and they had their famous pumpkin cupcakes. I really, really want that recipe because it is the best pumpkin cupcake I have tasted and I have tasted a few hundred in my life. They only make them during October and November. I have savored them all night. Another thing that wouldn't have happened without the little black hole of gloom and doom.

Remember when I bought the huge pumpkins at Target for under 4.00. Well, I went with baking one at 250 degrees F for around 20 minutes after I cleaned the biggest seeds I've ever seen in a pumpkin out of them. After it cooled, I just peeled the outside off and threw the contents in a huge bowl. I could hear my aunt telling me I would have to strain all the strings out and it was loaded with strings. Well, George bought me an Oster food processor for my birthday and I figured, get it out and try it out. Let me tell you, that double blade is sharp! Well, I started dropping pumpkin into it on low and next thing I knew I had two bowls of puree and not a string in sight. That is one mean mother of a food processor. I got over a half gallon of pumpkin out of old warty as it was known. I was licking my fingers because that was one good pumpkin. I froze most of it and have enough left for a pie in the fridge. Now I need to bake Smoothie and Sugar Baby and repeat the process. I do believe I have enough pumpkin for the entire season and who knows...they may reduce them after Halloween. I then cleaned up. Cleaning up these heavy duty appliances requires both us as we are getting up there in years and they are darned heavy. I could just hear aunt Rita saying to gently dry and buff that baby. If she had lived long enough to see these appliances do everything she did by hand for hours in just moments, she would have been ecstatic. I bet she is trying to reincarnate right this moment. Wait until she visits and sees the quilting/embroidering/ sewing machine I got cheap! She will be hanging around for a while and watching. It sure beats the old treadle machine I used to sit on the floor and work the treadle on when she got tired.

Now get out there and smile. Look forward and not backwards. Things really weren't that great in the past. I lived there. Today is really much, much better. SMILE!

Monday, Monday, I make a new convert

Monday, Monday, October 14, 2013

I'm teaching them small.....

Yummy, that mouse was good.

I had to make a trip to Target before my 5.00 off 30.00 of food coupon expired. I only had a couple of days left and 5 bucks is 5 bucks. Pumpkins were 4.00 so I brought two home. No, there will be no jack-o-lanterns to come by and see but you might see a slice of pumpkin pie. I can always draw a face on it with whipped cream. Anyway, everyone was in their usual dragging mood. I was smiling as I had a coupon and nothing makes a senior citizen happier than a coupon off food...well, maybe a coupon off drugs but October gets you double credit in the Pharmacy toward your 5% off every day. I think I scored that day tonight.

At the end of my shopping trip after discovering my 5.00 prescription was now 5.44, I was having a little trouble getting the corners of my mouth to go up. Then I passed a little boy being drug by his parental unit and he gave me a huge smile and said, “Have a nice day!” Well, I returned that smile and told him to have a GREAT day! His parental unit was startled anyone actually responded to him and I had recruited another little Smile Warrior. I will win this frown war. I will spread smiles.

By the time we got home, I discovered something I had felt when I made the bread dough. The yeast was dead and though the sourdough did its best. It did not succeed in raising the bread. So George asked if we should put more yeast in and try again. I told him that when your bread dough doesn't rise you have PIZZA! Let the salivating begin as I fix a pizza and a garlic loaf from scratch. George is in the kitchen chanting over the yeast. Sadly, I don't think he is trying to resurrect it. I think he is trying to kill it. That pizza was delicious.

I have one tiny sweet pumpkin. You may not know this, but the little pumpkins are called sugar pumpkins and are best for pie though looking at it, you might need two or three and they cost as much as a big pumpkin. I bought one for the seeds. By spring, I will have many sugar pumpkins. I bought two big ones. One is known as “Old Warty” as it is warty and the other one is smooth. You don't pick them for hollowness as you want the meat. You get the heaviest and most solid ones. Gads, we barely got them into the van they were so heavy. Tomorrow it's scoop and bake time followed by puree and can and freeze some plus pie. Then I learn how to roast pumpkin seeds and plant the rest. If you get a good veggie, you multiply it.

I bought a bunch of the dollar plastic pumpkins to use as pots on the fence. After Halloween, I just turn them around and they become harvest pumpkin pots. In my world, everything needs two uses or more. You have to remember, we really don't have winter in South Florida and this is our prime growing season or it will be when the temperatures get out of the feels like 90 to 100F. Right now even the tomatoes and peppers are refusing to bloom, claiming it is too hot. Guess I have to sow another generation of them as these are dead on their roots.

So my Smile Warriors, Monday may be tough but you will be back in the groove by Tuesday. Get out there and make some converts. Just because the world is collapsing is no reason not to be happy. There is nothing you can do about it, so smile and be happy. Remember, an unhappy day is a day wasted you are never getting back. AND....the best revenge is living well. I have a stomach full of pizza, a garlic loaf in the oven and am looking forward to playing a little Farmville before bed. I'm all smiles and if Trouble's picture didn't make you smile, nothing ever will.

Life's not Fair on Sunday, October 13, 2013

Life is Not Fair!

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Life's not fair is wail I hear all the time to justify people being harmed. Everyone totally hates it

when I ask why is life not fair. You are supposed to just accept that statement, suck it up and continue on and I ask why. You aren't supposed to think and above all else: question. Life is not fair because someone made it that way.

You know what, before Elizabeth Warren asked why banks could borrow money at a rate close to eight times less than the old student loans when students getting out of college fuel our economy and banks get bailed out for bad decisions, no one questioned the student loan system. No one bothered to look at most other countries where students not only get a free education but a stipend to live on. Yup, they just said, “Life's not fair.”

I remember when going for my masters, I decided to take on two jobs in the department to make extra money. After all, I was paying for my education by my self and working a full time job plus working for my professor. The administration promptly lowered my salary from my professor so I was now working two jobs at the University for the same amount of money I was making from one the semester before. When I promptly suggested they f' off, the next semester and I didn't need to work any job there, they raised the amount I made working for my professor back to the level of working for two professors the semester before. Life's not fair. The Hell with that, someone in the administration rigged the system so you could only make so much money no matter how hard you worked.

Someone rigged the system so students get screwed on loans. Did you know if your parents have good credit and can afford to pay the bills off in a reasonable amount of time, it may be cheaper to put your college on their credit card than take out a loan. It is almost always cheaper to take out a second mortgage on your house. AND here is the real rigging. You can discharge both those debts with bankruptcy but not a student loan. Life is not fair because someone is making it unfair not because some guy in sky decreed it should be that way, unless he is working for the guys down here rigging the system. Or maybe the guys down here created the guy in sky decreeing life wasn't fair so you wouldn't look at them as the reason.

So my Smile Warriors, your job this week is to make life fairer for someone. If you see someone struggling, help them. A load shared is a load halved. See, you do use math in normal life. It is simple. Last month, George saw a guy with a couple of kids looking at a compressor. He clearly couldn't afford the retail price. George walked out to the van and got his bag of coupons and gave him a 20.00 off the compressor coupon so he could buy it. You don't buy a compressor for fun. You need it to work. Making life more fair for someone is as simple as that. It really is alright to help strangers. It really is alright to talk to strangers.

I know, you just had a scream well up...you can't talk to strangers! Everyone knows that. Really, why? You don't get in the car with them. You don't go home with them. You don't allow them to touch you, but then again you keep your distance from friends, too. Why can't you talk to them? Talk is cheap. Talk brightens everyone's day. A load shared is a load halved. If you were to actually pull out the statistics, more children by a HUGE amount are molested, kidnapped and harmed by family members and their friends than by random strangers. It is actually safer among strangers than with your circle of acquaintances, friends and family members. You don't talk to strangers because that way you stay isolated, afraid to ask for or receive help and guess what, when something happens that could easily have been averted by the help of another human being, life is just not fair.

Are you beginning to see the brainwashing that keeps you hurt, alone and afraid all the time? My Smile Warriors, you are brave, strong and able to go where others are afraid to tread. You are not afraid of your fellow human beings. Good people just need a little encouragement to be better people. Guess what? Bad people just need the right circumstances to be bad and those circumstances are the same ones every predator looks for; prey that is alone, afraid and weakened.

Think about it. There plenty of wildebeest on the African plain. There are also plenty of lions looking for a nice wildebeest dinner. A lion is the perfect predator. So why hasn't the lion eaten all the wildebeests? Because the wildebeests not only stick together and though singularly can't fight a lion, together they can be a formidable enemy and they make friends with the elephant that can fight a lion. No wildebeest has ever been afraid of another wildebeest or afraid to scream for help with the lion. Any wildebeest hurting another wildebeest is quickly facing the whole herd and a few minutes while thinking about his transgression, the lion.

Folks, we are the wildebeests and we have to stop being afraid of each other and the elephants in the room and figure out who the lions are and take measures to be safe, together.

Now there are some things that just aren't fair. I have not managed to plug any cord into an outlet the first time since some idiot decreed there should be polarized plugs. You know, one side of the prongs is bigger than the other side and one side of the outlet is bigger than the other one. I was decrying the fact that with 50/50 odds, once in a while I should win when I realized the odds were a bit more skewed....more like 33% odds of getting it right. Huh? Do the math. If you got the plug lined up, the outlet may be out of line. I swear they make the cords so the way you grab them is naturally twisted in the opposite direction from the outlet. Otherwise, I couldn't always be wrong. When was the last time you managed to stick your USB in right the first time? Next to never? Someone is rigging the game here and I don't know how but I swear I will find out before I die.

 And that my Smile Warriors is my job for the rest of my life.

Monday 10/07/13 Raccoon and Cat Stuff...no humans allowed.

Good Morning Smile Warriors It's Monday, October 7, 2013

Okay, I'm cheating.

It's really 11:46 on Sunday night but I was afraid I wouldn't be up early enough to greet you and I know how bad a Monday can be. I used to work in retail....

So, how about I give you a few smiles from yesterday.

This is the other twin, I think

George and I were preparing for the trek to BJ's for milk. As is our custom borne of lots of broken dishes, we gather all the cups and saucers up and head for the sink. Otherwise, the cats have a tantrum and we sweep up broken glass when we get home. So single file we are limping into the kitchen where I know the small side of the sink is clean and empty. Well, that was the plan. It's seems in our absence, the Furry 7 had taken up residence in the sink. There sat two of them. We did not ask why as obviously they were doing cat stuff. We just put our dishes in the cat dish side of the sink and left. Discretion is the better part of valor.

We returned home from BJ's and George, though he has been warned a hundred times, left the box of groceries outside the gate. Fortunately, I am slower but I was behind him. By the time I got to the gate, one of our twin raccoons had found the box. The only thing that saved us was instead of acting like a wild animal, grabbing things and running, it was picking through the box to see what it wanted. I live in a very strange world.

So go forth my Smile Warriors and spread some cheer on this Monday and be thankful you do not have strange cats and raccoons because I could box them up and ship them to you. Remember, a compliment a day makes someone's day and you are the BEST!