It's been a long few weeks....and it's getting to be that stressful holiday season, so I can only imagine it will get longer.  I am prepared for most of it though, so it should go better this year. 

Mom and Ken are in Mazatlan.  Mom said that the beach at the Mayan (the resort we stay at) was destroyed by Hurricane Rick.  I emailed her, all worried about our trip in January, but she told me they are working to restore it and bringing in extra sand and stuff, so it should be back for us when we go.  Phew.

This weekend is the craft show at Central....I love craft shows!  I'm excited to go and see what I can buy.  And then on Sunday, hopefully, Mom's going to come over and help me paint the bay window wall.  Then Ben can cut a board for me and we can paint it and put our Uppercase Living phrase on it.  Yay!

We went to church at my grandma's old church on Sunday.  They lit a candle in remembrance of her.  It was strangely hard to be there.  But it was not hard to go to the gravesite with my dad after the service.  Funny how little that means to me.  After church, we went to the MOA for a little bit.  I bought MySims Agents.  We weren't sure I'd like it because it was supposed to be different, but I love it....I'm totally addicted! 

Have a wonderful day, and a wonderful week!  Don't forget to smile, smile, smile and be happy!

Ben and I celebrated 3 years yesterday!  We went to Biaggi's for dinner, which is fun because they put a little bowl of parmesan on the table for me to use as often as I want.  And they have bowtie noodles for their alfredo dish.  Yum!   After dinner we went to Caribou and the park in my mom's neighborhood, to re-enact our first date.  It was a surprise, which I didn't figure out until we pulled into the Caribou parking lot.  I was a little slow to figure it out, even after he gave me little clues about how we would be outside for part of the night. 

Monday night I had an Uppercase Living party, which had a better turn-out than I ever really expected.  A couple people who had previously not been able to make it had some cancellations in their plans and were able to come, so that was fun.  I got lots of free stuff and I'm excited to get it and put it all up.  Which makes me excited for Christmas because I got a few Christmas decorations.  Fun!

Mom and I went up to the riverhouse for the weekend...well, for Friday night.  We watched a total of 8 episodes of Gilmore Girls, went shopping briefly in Nisswa (mostly because we wanted a scone from the coffee shop), and got some new shoes at the shoe store in Pequot Lakes.  The reason we chose that weekend to go was because of an open house at one of our favorite stores.  But that turned out to be the least fun part of the weekend.  Oh well...8 episodes of Gilmore Girls definitely makes for a good weekend...and it forced my mom to relax which she never does.   

On Sunday, Ben started to get the cold I had the week before, but he seems to never have gotten it completely.  I'm glad.  It was not a fun few days.  I got the cold here at work, where it just made its rounds through all our clinic assistants.  Now it is downstairs with our patient coordinators so we're staying away from them for a while. 

Have a wonderful day folks!  Smile, smile, smile and be happy!

This week is one of the longest weeks ever.  I really think it should be Friday today.  It makes no sense to me that it's only Thursday.  It's my own fault though.  I am at the easy desk this week, and on Sunday I hoped that it would go by slowly unlike all the other times when it goes by quickly and I hardly get a chance to enjoy the easyness of it.  And then it's a slow week, so what can I expect....it's what I wanted for some odd reason.  Only one more day though, so I think I can handle it. 

Today is Ben's birthday.  We are going out to eat and then I finally get to give him the awesome...present.  I made some cupcakes last night that turned out to be super good.  They were cream cheese cupcakes....with cream cheese frosting of course.  I'm not sure what to do with the outrageous amount of excess frosting I have.  This happened last time I made cream cheese frosting so I should really remember that it is a large recipe and I can probably cut it in half for most things.  Then again, leftover frosting is not a dilemma I mind being faced with.  Just a matter or how I can get away with eating it. 

Teri gave me a recipe for some tomato bake thing, so we made it the other night.  Well, Ben made it while I hoped that I would be able to enjoy it a little.  I ate 4 little chunks of tomato, which were actually more of the bread and cheese topping than they were tomato, but nonetheless, I ate tomatoes.  And then I sprinkled leftover parmesan cheese on a bagel and that was really good also.  Good to know. 

We have no plans for this weekend...it's very fun to say that still.  That stops in a couple weeks when some plans start coming again, so I like to say it for now.  Last weekend got strangely busy even with no plans, so maybe that will end up happening again.  We went to IKEA, IHOP and the airport on friday night with Teri and Cheryl (and Mark until we dropped him at the airport).  Patsy said it sounded like a family trip to vist the airport, and it made us sound like real country folk.  Not sure how I feel about that, but it's still funny to think of it that way.  Saturday I think Ben went somewhere, and I had a "MySims marathon."  He also was working off and on throughout the weekend, so I played MySims all through that to keep myself entertained.  I almost beat the entire game.  I think I have one more collectible to find and deliver and then I'm done.  Crazy! 

In the book I'm reading, the pastor asks his wife about a man who has been blinded during his accident.  The doctors think he'll get his sight back, but he hasn't yet.  His wife says there's no change really, and then asks how the pastor prays for the blind man.  He says "I pray that God give him his sight back, or something better."  I thought that was a cool thing to pray...or something better.  It sounds good. 

And now, back to work.  Have a great day all, and don't forget to smile and be happy!! 

And just to let everyone know the whole song....
Be optomistic!  Don't you be a grumpy; when the road gets bumpy, just smile, smile, smile and be happy!
Don't wear a long face; it's never in style!  Be optomistic and smile!