My Cup Runneth Over

I’ve been in a bit of a rut the past few days.  I just felt blah and a little blue.  Work has been extremely stressful, which is odd b/c usually this time of year everything slows way down but it has been super busy.  Anyways, a lot of fun things happened today that got me out of the doldrums.

We were all sitting and working when two GOOD LOOKING firemen came in the door and asked to see the person in charge.  We went and got the boss and he talked to them.  They were super nice guys, so Liz asked them if we could go outside and get a picture by their truck.  They laughed and said sure, so we all headed outside to get a picture.  There were 2 more firemen in the truck and when we told them we wanted to get a picture, they told us not only could we get a picture by the truck, but we could get IN the truck!  Kristin got in the driver’s seat.

We all climbed in the back and were like giddy little school girls.

Then we got a picture next to the big truck.  It doesn’t look like your typical fire truck, b/c it’s a special operations fire truck.  We decided this picture would be our office Christmas card picture (if we had such a thing).  We went back in and were just laughing and giggling.  The two firemen inside asked us if we wanted some stickers and we of course said yes.  It sounds so silly, but we were so incredibly excited about fireman stickers.  They gave us about 30 of them, so I’m going to take all the extras and give them to Autumn’s teacher to hand out to Autumn’s class.

I went to the store today to get some groceries, b/c I had no food to eat for breakfast and lunch at work (I try to keep groceries at work so I’m not tempted to eat out which is way more expensive).  On the drive home from work I rolled down the windows to soak in the amazing weather and just blasted the radio and sang along.  I especially love “Party In The USA.”  When I got Autumn from daycare, she was in a little bit of a bad mood, so I gave her a can of mandarin oranges to hold (she loves mandarin oranges) on the ride home and we talked about making a mandarin orange chicken salad when we got home, and that took her right out of her bad mood.  We got home and she helped me carry in a sack of groceries and then we made our salad and it was SOOOO good and just hit the spot.  I love the Paul Newman’s Lite Sesame Ginger salad dressing.

Rachel from my visiting teaching group gave me this candle on Sunday.  It’s from Anthropologie and it’s the Aloha Orchid smell.  I decided to light it tonight and it’s such a small little candle, but it is so fragrant and fills the whole entire house!  It smells so clean and fresh, not to mention it looks so decorative.  THANK YOU, RACHEL!!!

While we were relaxing, the doorbell rang.  It was Liz & Cassie (the dog).  Liz wanted to get in some exercise, so they went on a walk around the neighborhood and ended up at our house.  It was such a fun surprise.  Autumn looks scared in this picture, but she’s not at all.  She LOVES Cassie and was so sad when Liberty came to pick them up and they left.  I’m so thankful to have such good friends like Liz & Liberty.

After they left, Autumn wanted her bah bah (she usually has it as soon as we walk in the door when we get home, but she was too excited about making our salad to want her bah bah).  She uses it as her time to be quiet and unwind from the day, but she knows if she wants her bah bah she has to get in her bed.  I went in to check on her and I found her laying on the little bench in her room drinking her bah bah.  Look at her w/ her hand on her forehead as if she’s fainted.  She’s such a cute little bug.

Mom & Dad called and said they were coming over to watch Autumn so I could go on a walk!  That was the nicest thing of them to do.  I try to go walking at night, but sometimes Nick doesn’t get home from work until 10:00 or later and I can’t leave Autumn alone but it’s too late to go walking when he gets home.  Another incredibly nice thing that Mom & Dad did for me was yesterday they came over and dug up all the flowers/weeds in the yard and also put mulch in all the flowerbeds and around the trees!  I have the absolutely best landlords in the whole world!  Autumn’s new obsession is putting her little hair elastics in her baby’s hair.  She took Dad by the finger and led him into my bathroom and showed him that she wanted the little box of elastics.  She’s such a smart little girl.

Here’s what she did to her baby.  Looks a little like Pippy Longstocking, huh?

Look at how many elastics she used.  At least 50, and this is just one side of the doll’s hair.  I think tomorrow I’m going to go buy Autumn her own box of elastics to use on her babies b/c it only cost like $1.50 for the whole box.  I’m glad that she is so happy w/ such cheap things (like elastics and covering up babies w/ dish towels).

I went and checked the mail after my walk, which was awesome.  The moon was out and was HUGE and orange…such a beautiful harvest moon.  I also loved just walking along to my music.  Anyways, I was THRILLED to see that the conference edition of the Ensign finally got here.  I’ve been waiting weeks and weeks for it.  Now I can start devouring it and marking it all up.

Can this day get any better???  I’m sitting here blogging about my day and I just got a text from Liz saying they are watching House Hunters International on HGTV and they are showing SLOVENIJA!!!  I hurried and switched over to that channel just as they were showing the center of Ljubljana and it literally brought a tear to my eye and made my heart ache b/c I miss it so much.  It’s crazy to think that 6 years ago I was standing right in that spot they just showed and I was sharing the Gospel!  I miss Slovenija and all the people I know and love there SO MUCH!  I don’t know if I can watch the rest of this show, it’s making me long to go back to Slovenija.  So, for any of you living in Slovenija that read my blog, please enjoy your day double for me today and drink a Multi Sola just for me!!! :)

I am just so incredibly happy today, which is so nice to be out of my slump.  How can I possibly feel down when I have so many blessings and great things in my life?  I love the movie Hope Floats and one of my favorite lines in that movie is, “My cup runneth over.”  I can truly say that today my cup definitely runneth over w/ happiness and blessings.