This picture reminded me of a poem that I’ve had running through my mind all week. I can’t recall it all word-for-word, but I remember the meaning behind it. It went something like this:

“Birdhouses”

People said they were a good excuse for looking up.

That was it. That was the entire poem. My 8th grade English teacher, Miss Manna, had a book of poems that were written during the Depression. For some reason this poem really stuck out for me. We were supposed to pick a poem that would enable us to create three different types of projects based on it. When I chose this one my teacher thought that I should pick another one because how could you possibly do a three part project on one sentence? The first part was a written essay, I think, based on what you felt the poem meant. That was easy. The second part… I can’t remember what that involved. The third part, however, had to involve the class. A lot of kids chose to create games based on their poems. At the time I was very much into cake decorating, so I baked a 9×13 cake and decorated it to look like a birdhouse with a bird in it. It really wasn’t very creative, but it worked and I scored really high on the entire thing.

Anyway, with the way that my week was going I kept thinking about how others have had it, and are having it, worse than me. When you’re walking through your own mud and mire it’s hard to keep that in mind. I would think of the poem, and of looking up, and it reminded me that God is in all things and has a plan for us all. I just had to keep faith in Him. Also, I had to remember that Friday would be around the corner and then things would be better. lol

How was your Friday? Mine started off with my coworker being on the phone a dozen times. Then my boss called us into his office where I was essentially told that I had been passed over for a promotion that I had applied for. Then I received an e-mail stating that in order to fix my dehumidifier they would have to send a tech out to look at it, despite the fact that the stupid thing is less than a year old. Also, I’ve been thinking about Chrissy a lot and missing her. Finally, the weather was not nice on my ride to Jay’s. But it’s all good. Do you know why? Because I am at Jay’s and I have two days before I have to go back to work. 🙂

It’s also nice when you have people who care about you call just to check in. It makes you happy knowing that there’s somebody out there who is thinking about you. When things are getting me down, I try to recall a moment when something made me bust out laughing. Tomorrow I am heading a little further south for the day in order to visit with a college friend. We had a TON of fun in school and without any alcohol involved whatsoever. Let me tell you a few stories…

I went to college out in the Finger Lakes region of NY. It’s a gorgeous region, but they don’t get nearly as much snow as what I was used to where I grew up. One morning we had classes canceled because we had received about a foot of snow overnight. I was amazed that they would shut things down because I wasn’t used to that. Where I lived if we got a foot of snow overnight you had to take things a little slower, but we did it. Well, my friends thought it would be fun to play in the snow. So we trudge out there and I’m trying to enjoy myself (I’m not much of a fan of the snow) when out of nowhere one of my tiny and very petite friends ran at me and did her best to tackle me. What ended up happening was she bounced off of me and landed in the snow. I looked down at her as if to say, “What in the world was that??” My other friends were dying of laughter because they said it lookedlike a ball bouncing off of a brick wall. I hadn’t even budged!

My friend whom I will be visiting tomorrow used to live across the hall from me. I didn’t have a roommate during most of my time at college, but I had a double room. I would keep a bedspread on the other bed so that my friends could lounge on that if they were visiting me. Which they did, except for Vikkie. She would sneak into my room while I was doing homework or watching TV, and leap onto my bed… the one that I was using! She would then proceed to hog up the space and hang out with me. Whenever I would point out to her that there was an entire empty bed on the other side of the room she would insist that my bed was the ‘Community Bed’ and therefore open to all visitors. lol. When I moved into my house she insisted that I needed to have the Community Bed ready for when she visited. It may seem silly and not at all funny, but it makes me laugh.

Let me leave you with one last thought that I try to live by everyday:

Smile. It makes people wonder what you’re plotting. 🙂