10 Things That Made This Week Interesting!

Ever have a memorable, interesting and funny kind of week? That’s how this week has felt for me. I wanted to capture the top ten moments so here it goes – 10 reasons this week has been memorable:

1. I dropped a balsamic vinegar bottle all over the kitchen floor!

Here’s the proof. I took a photo of it.

That’s how my Monday morning started off. This happened around 7 a.m. when I was trying to grab a plate from the cabinet and accidentally knocked over the bottle. It got everywhere and was such a sticky mess. On the plus side, my dogs were still picked up and my kids were still sleeping. I could clean it up without corralling dogs from licking it up. Also my kids are older and know to stand back. I remember when they were babies or toddlers and I dropped a wine glass and a salsa jar and had to place them in their cribs to keep them from going near the mess. At least this time felt easier. I say “this time” because I know it won’t be my last time dropping and breaking something that causes a big mess. That’s just life and my clumsiness!

2. My kids exchanged pen pal letters with new people across the U.S. – one in Tennessee, one in California and one email pal in Peru.

I found an online pen pal class through a site called Outschool. A teacher was offering a class to connect kids who wanted to learn to write letters and exchange letters as pen pals. I asked my girls if they wanted to do it. To my happy surprise they said yes. I had a pen pal for several years growing up, a girl named Julie from New Jersey who was my age. I also wrote letters to my college friend on summer breaks because we enjoyed letter writing. My daughters really enjoyed this experience and were excited to receive letters in the mail this week. They said they both will continue writing to their pen pals as long as the other kids wish to continue. In a world where writing pencil to paper is a bit of a dying art form, this really made me nostalgic and feel joy.

3. My husband let our female dog sit in his lap during dinner because she was scared during a thunderstorm.

Here is the picture to prove that. Now this may not seem like a big deal. Most pets love to be in their owner’s laps. But this is different. This is special. Our female dog, May, was a rescue dog that we took in to our home almost two years ago. And for nearly two years, she has been afraid of my husband. Now my husband was the one that chose to bring her into our family. He wanted a second dog and we agreed. After one day of her being with us, she became very scared of him, never letting him touch her. She always gravitated toward the kids and me, all girls in general. She seems to be scared of most men. We don’t know her full history or if something terrible happened to her. She’s a wonderful, sweet dog. Since March when the pandemic began, my husband has been working from home. She has finally bonded with my husband and now goes to him for comfort. I’m so glad she sees him as family now, and I know my husband is glad too.

4. Vivian gave me a Happy Mother’s Day card instead of a birthday card for my birthday celebration.

I had a birthday this week and my family celebrated me. My husband made me my favorite cake – a coffee-flavored brownie cake. Lana gave me hand crafted gifts – a unicorn painting, a picture and other crafts. But the funny thing was that Vivian gave me a really thoughtful heart-felt letter that said, “Happy Mother’s Day” not once, not twice, but four times in the letter. I said, “you know it’s my birthday, not Mother’s Day, right? That was in May?!” She just looked at me with that expression that said, Oh gosh, I can’t believe I did that. “I feel so dumb,” she finally said. We all laughed about it and have been teasing her ever since! She really does have these very common-sense dumb kind of moments that send our family into hysterics.

Here’s proof of her letter.

And proof that my younger daughter knew it was my birthday and should maybe proofread her big sister’s letters! 😉

Also, here are my girls and me on my birthday.

5. Also, something really great happened on my birthday – I found out I won a writing contest!   

I received an email notification and that was the first email I had read of the day so it was very special. I think it meant more to me not just because it was my birthday but because the day prior, I felt like a loser. 24 hours before I had received two writing rejections for things I had written. So this felt like good karma that had come my way. I look forward to sharing this writing win with you in a few days!

6. My kids were winners too this week! – Each of them won prizes from the local library’s summer reading contest.
Both girls read over 90 hours from the end of May to the end of July. I couldn’t believe that they both won. Usually it’s just one and the other is jealous and pouts. So this worked out nicely. I am really proud of them and tried to keep up with them but I fell short by 20 hours and only read about 70 hours myself. My youngest daughter won a Pete the Cat game and book. My oldest daughter won a book/tablet/reader pillow holder.

Here they are with their prizes.

7. I realized once and for all that my children are smarter than me when it comes to solving riddles and math problems.
On my birthday the girls and I played this online treasure hunt game where we had to unlock clues to find our pretend hidden treasure. Yes I know you’re jealous. That is a riveting birthday celebration! Anyway, I did not realize until we began the hunt that it involved using our brains so much… We had to answer riddles which my youngest figured out. Then we had to solve these word problems that involved math and codes which my oldest figured out. It was then that I finally resolved that I’m useless when it comes to these kinds of games. I have some street smarts but these two kids have surpassed me in the book smarts category. I admit defeat.

8. I was sprayed in the face by a sprinkler and laughed about it for a whole day.
This also happened on my birthday. What a memorable birthday, huh? I was jogging around my neighborhood feeling all good and proud of myself for being healthy on my birthday before I had two big slices of brownie cake. I was looking ahead and pacing myself not paying full attention to a neighbor’s sprinkler that was going off and watering the lawn. Whoosh! In my face! Oh well, it was a bit refreshing and it was darn funny too. I kept thinking about it throughout the day and laughing.

9. My husband installed a camera on a squirrel feeder in our backyard so we can catch footage of the squirrels eating and jumping.
I can’t make this up people. We have resorted to squirrel entertainment at home during these pandemic times. Our backyard squirrels have been so active lately and on weekends we watch them on our back porch. A friend shared a video of this engineer dude who made obstacle courses for the squirrels in his yard. That gave us all a good chuckle. We weren’t going to stoop that far but my husband liked the idea of putting up a feeder. So he picked one out. Then he and the girls painted and decorated it. After that he decided to install a camera so we can get some squirrel jumping and eating action. Today we received our first footage, mostly of the squirrel’s furry butt with sounds of it munching on the corn. Stay tune for more exciting squirrel adventures that may be shared in future blog posts!

Here’s the proof.

10. I feel at peace, happy and motivated for the first time in several months, and that feels good.
Here’s the strangest of them all – number 10. I have felt happy this week, despite all the weirdness, despite turning a year older. I think back to last week too… I felt content then too. That makes almost two weeks of feeling at peace for the first time since March. I have moved into the stage of acceptance of this really weird time in our history. I’m making the most of it. I’m counting my blessings every day.  I’m lucky, so very lucky and I know that. I just finally remembered that and kept that in the forefront of my mind for the past 14 days. And that has been good for my mental health and soul. This is not an easy time and I know I may slip into moments of sadness again. But recently hope has resurfaced and I’m holding onto that like that squirrel was holding onto its food on our feeder.

What weird, wonderful things have happened to you this week? Share! I’d love to hear!