Fun Things in Recent Life

My secretary is a phenomenal gardener.  She loves to dig in the dirt and she grows the most beautiful flowers.  Everyday she arrives at work carrying a small, freshly picked bouquet of different flowers from her garden.  They always make me smile!  The next 6 pictures are from today's arrangement.

My favorite rose out of today's arrangement.

I love those little purple things. 

 A few weeks ago I bought some really cheap tickets to an Arkansas Travelers Baseball Game.  I was able to get 8 and so I thought I would invite a small group of people and all of us go to one of the last home games before the payoffs.  We had a really good time even though none of us are die-hard baseball fans.  We just kept the beer coming and enjoyed an adult night out. 

My sister with the Travelers mascot.

First foul ball of the game comes straight to us.  A friend attempted to catch it first but it was going too fast and bounced up in the air after it hit him.  I was the lucky one who ended up with it!

We had front row seats right along the third base line. 

We went out to a bar on the river after the game to celebrate... even though we lost the game. 

This is my new picture hanging above my couch.

I think it fits very well into how I feel right now and everything else I've decorated with since moving in.

This picture was posted on a friend's facebook page and I couldn't resist sharing it with you guys.  It's just too damn cute!

And this is just too damn cute as well!  In moments like this I fall so much more in love with him then I did the day he was born.   

Busy Life

So far in the month of August I have only written five posts, this one being the sixth.  Life has been a little on the busy side.  Changes at work, school starting, last minute vacations, family coming home... pheeeew!

At this moment I am sitting in the food court of a mall enjoying a slice of pizza and a coke while waiting for my younger sister to finish a seminar that she had to attend this weekend in order to renew her massage therapy license.  We are three and a half hours from our homes in the great city of Fort Smith, Arkansas.  I actually lived in Fort Smith for an entire year when I was 18.  I moved up here to attend the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith for my first year of college.  This weekend is the first time that I have been back to this historical city since that May when I moved home to be with my future husband and change my major.    Wow at the memories!  I actually really loved it here except that it was too far from my family.  My ex husband played a big part in that as well.  Young and irrevocably in love, I wanted nothing more than for that year to end so I could move back home and start planning our wedding.

If I were given the opportunity to go back in time and change something, I'm undecided whether I would or not.  I'm not a person with a lot of regrets.  I have a few but marrying my ex husband isn't one of them.  That feels strange to admit to myself but I truly don't regret it.  I knew I was in love in that moment and that I didn't want to continue my life unless he was in it.  But on the flip side I gave up on a few things that I wish now I hadn't.  I could definitely be making a lot more money as a dental hygienist then as a teacher, but because the dental school was too far away from my ex husband I changed my major to my second choice, education.  Maybe in the end all the regrets and the non-regrets sort of even out.  

I'm slowly getting a point in this new life of mine where I think I'm feeling happy.  This emotion is very strange for me because it has really been a long time since I genuinely felt it.  But I obviously need to work harder on projecting these new feelings outward because my mother pointed out to me last week, while she was home for a visit, that I seemed to be a little down in the dumps and that her and my father were really ready to start seeing me happy.  They apparently think that I'm having trouble finding the middle ground between really bubbly excited happiness and complete depression, I'm either one or the other.  Hearing that from her while eating lunch was a bit hurtful, but I know it comes from the truest form of love and I needed to hear it.  I've thought a lot about this and I know they are right but I don't know how to fix it, I don't know how to get myself to the middle and stay there.  My emotional state is so dramatic and fragile.  The wind blows and my feelings change!  This is not something I'm proud of.  I wish I knew a way to become a more emotionally stable person, but for now I'm just going to keep things as uncomplicated as possible and continue working towards finding the middle.

 I have a lot of fun pictures to share but I don't have the cord I need to hook my phone, where they are all saved, to this computer so that I can upload them.  I will try to do that tomorrow so the stories that go along with them are not "old news" to everyone.  

      

More of my "Fortunate" Life

This week has by far been an interesting one. 
#1 The weather went from being so incredibly unbearable to fairly nice thanks to a couple of serious thunderstorms.  For the next 10 days the projected forecast doesn't predict anything above 91 degrees!  Thank the Lord!
#2 Work hasn't been much fun this week because first thing Monday morning my boss' daughter totalled her car while driving herself and her younger brother to school.  It was scary but thankfully they were not seriously hurt.  A few bruises and some minor burns from the seat belts and airbags but that's all.  Needless to say, Doc has had a lot on his mind all week. 
#3 I am sick.  Somewhere around Tuesday afternoon my throat got really scratchy and sore and then I woke up Wednesday morning completely unable to breath through my nose.  My diagnosis: a late summer head cold.  Booooo!  I would rather have something serious so drugs could be taken to get rid of it, but no, I'm on some natural supplements per my boss and lots of fluids and lots of rest for about 5 days.  I hate being sick.  It really stinks!
#4 My sister and I enjoyed dinner with an old friend Tuesday night at P.F. Changs and when my fortune cookie arrived at the end of the meal I opened it to read... "The one you love is closer than you think."  What the hell!!!!!  I'm not a very superstitious woman, but holy crow!  You hand a lonely, single girl a fortune like that and what do you expect.  It hasn't left my mind since.  I have secretly thought this to myself before but banished such thoughts because, in all honesty, there isn't anyone I know that I could fathom spending any part of my life with.  And then on the flip side it's put all sorts of fears in my mind like, what if it's my nerdy neighbor that always has really bad body odor or the somewhat perverted patient that comes in my office and constantly stares at me?!  Surely, my fate with love is more glorious than someone I've known all my life, or part of my life!  Right?  :)

First Day of School Life

My Lil Man started Pre-School today.  All I can think about is how quickly time passes and how blessed I am to be the mother of the most beautiful little boy in the world.  I wanted to post a quick note to all the other mothers out there that have little ones, or old ones, starting school this morning and say that no matter what your situation, love your babies unconditionally and tell them how thankful you are that they are yours.  They need to hear that every once in awhile and they need to feel your love, especially on a scary day like today... the first day of school. 

Reading My Fortune in Life

My parents are both home for the next two weeks and so today I met them at a Chinese buffet for lunch.  The food was great and we made some plans for the next two weeks while they are in town.  It's always a little hectic but we take full advantage of the time that we have with them because they are not home very much throughout the year. 

At the end of our meal our server brought three fortune cookies, one for each of us, and even though I really don't like to eat those kind of cookies we always open them and read aloud what ours say.  My mother's cookie was a little confusing at first but the more I thought about it I really liked it.  I also think that more people should try to do this so life is enjoyed a little more.  It read "Hardly anyone knows how much is gained by ignoring the future".  It does seem like we all focus a little too much on what is going to happen in the future instead of focusing on what is happening right now.  I know I do!  My mind is constantly thinking about next week, or next month, or five years down the road.  I worry a lot about the future as well as plan a lot for the future.  I'm going to try to focus my mind more to the present and enjoying it. 

My father's cookie read "Not just live and let live... but live and HELP live".  I personally think that if we all tried to do this so much of the anger, and hate, and neglect, and abuse that goes on all over the world would lessen. 

My cookie read "Compassion will cure more than condemnation".  All I have to say is AMEN!!  That absolutely couldn't be more true, but we are all, by nature, selfish beings and the automatic response to most dramatic, or serious situations is to think of ourselves first and others second.  If we demonstrated compassion and selfless actions, again, the world would be a better place! 
 

One Hundred Degree Life

I am almost at a lost for words!  In the past 15 years I do NOT ever remember it being as hot in Arkansas as it has been the past couple of days.  It is so miserable outside that people are seriously getting sick, to the point of being hospitalized, because they are out too long and do not take the proper precautions. 

This is a sign next door to my office and yesterday afternoon at approximately 2:30 this is the temperature it recorded.  We were all standing inside looking out the windows and were at a lost for words.  I, of course, braved the sweltering sun and walked across the parking lot to take a picture so I would have proof.     

 I have never been a person who loves the summertime because it's a little too hot down here for my liking but when it gets like this... Oh My Gosh! I'm this close to packing my bags and heading north! This is just ridiculous.

Quotes for Life

"Success is getting what you want, and happiness is wanting what you get."
-Dove Promises Message-

"Love many, trust few, and always paddle your own canoe."
-Terri from Coudersport, PA-


The doctor that I work for used to like us to keep Dove chocolates in a drawer for days when we all felt like a little something sweet.  It turned into some kind of little adventure, when we would all have a piece, to read  the quotes on the inside of the wrappers and see who got the most inspirational one.  The two sayings above came from Dove chocolate wrappers and are tapped to my computer screen so I get to read them everyday.  I think they are incredibly true and they always lighten my burdened thoughts a little when I read them.