A Sparkly Shiny Kind of Day

Yesterday was one of those days where everything was more sparkly and shiny than usual.  My dad pointed out that what Chuck Swindoll says is true–that 95 per cent of life is attitude.  I think that is true. My BFF had pointed out something to me that changed my attitude completely about a few things, and made the whole day…well, more sparkly and shiny.

I was supposed to sing at our church Christmas dinner, but because of the snowstorm, had not been able to practice with the women who were going to ‘sing backup’ for me.  It sounds funny to me to say that.  But the song needed filling in.  Anyway, they were very gracious, and we agreed to meet at noon to practice.  Everything seemed to go together better than any of us had hoped for, so I left the church and went for my long overdue workout with Vicky.

And what a workout it was!  She did this circuit thing with about 8 stations, either with free weights, or body-bearing weight (like push-ups) and you started out with one rep of each of the 8 exercises, and then kept increasing by one until you were doing 10 reps of each exercise.  Of course it starts out easy, but by the end I was cracking myself up because I was moving from station to station (which was only a few feet) like the old man played by Tim Conway on the Carol Burnett show.  And yes, I was sweating by the end of it!  Then we did some really great stretching, and on to a really difficult (for me) abs workout.  I really need to start concentrating on this area a little bit more.

After the workout I headed over to Starbuck’s to get a coffee.  I love how they have those cozy chairs where you can curl up and read for a while.  I don’t do it often, but once in a while I have a little time to fill in.  (I didn’t want to go back home before the dinner because of time and the weather.)  It was just the perfect break.

Then back to the church to practice one more time with the ‘sound guys.’  I met some new people who were truly delightful, and had a great time at dinner.  I was also REALLY happy with my dinner choices.  I ate some of the meat (chicken AND beef) and some of the salad.  I took a baked potato, but only ate 4 small bites.  I kind of forgot that I really wouldn’t want to eat that much because I was SO nervous.  My song went well, and the whole evening was just wonderful.  I came home and ended the evening with a cup of that Trader Joe’s tea that I am loving (Candy Cane green tea) and yes, 2 cookies.  Then it was off to bed.  I was exhausted.

My food intake for the day was relatively low, about 1300 calories, and I wasn’t sleeping very well, and I finally decided it was because I was hungry.  The first time I got up, I ate a handful of walnuts.  The second time I ate one lo-bar.  And this morning my weight was down a whole pound.  So I really think my metabolism was working overtime yesterday.  Just interesting.

Okay, my blog writing was just interupted by Larry the Plumber.  Yes, that is actually the name of my plumber.  And evidently I spoke too soon yesterday, because one of the things that woke me in the middle of the night was an ominously familiar sound.  Yes, a broken pipe…I’m only telling you this because I think it is so funny how Larry will rig things up for me.  He didn’t have the right size fitting with him (I had described a couple of things wrong…) and as we looked at it, there was about a 1/4 inch almost perfectly round rusted hole in the pipe. Larry said maybe we could plug the hole temporarily, so we looked around on the ground right where we were.  He tried a stick first, and that was too small.  Then I spied some old bamboo stakes and broke one off where I thought it was the right circumference, and voila!  I will have enough water pressure to get a shower tonight, and he will be back to fix it properly in the morning.

Okay, on to the important stuff–Christmas pictures!

This is a quilt my BFF gave me a few years ago.  I ‘decorate’ it every year with pins that I get–I never wear pins, so it is a fun place to keep them.

The best part is what she wrote under the ‘tree skirt’ flap.  This is a saying from a great book that we gave each other.

And yet more sparkly ornaments.  These first two are two of my oldest ones.  The ball is the one I mentioned that I have from my childhood, and the parrot is so old that every year a little of his tale flakes off.  He was one of the ‘antique’ ornaments that my mom gave me.

I like this lamppost because it reminds me of where Lucy met Mr. Tumnus in Narnia.

And some more animal pairings.

The tortoise and the hare.  (I know, looks more like a turtle and a bunny.)

And the fox and the hen

Alright, that’s enough of that for today.  I guess you could see in the first picture of the Christmas tree that all the snow is gone.  Today we have had blustery rain all day, and right now we are having a thunder and lightening storm like I haven’t seen for years!  Please Lord, don’t take my electricity away again!