Think Happy Thoughts...

The news has been filled with sad stories the past few weeks. I'm not going to go into them, because the focus of my post today is to list people, places and things that make me smile. Things that make me happy (and in some cases, downright giddy). Life might not be a bed of roses all the time, but there is ALWAYS a light at the end of the tunnel. ALWAYS. Life will never get so bad that the sun will refuse to come up the next morning.

First, I am happy that I have a Lord and Savior who loves me, ALL THE TIME. I'll be honest, I'm not loveable all the time, but HE is the one who, despite my mood or attitude, loves me. When the world is a dark place, HE is the light shining through. Second, I am happy that I have a big loving family. For those who know anything about my family, you know there are a lot of us (bonus points if you can match up my nieces and nephews to the correct sibling). And yes, it can be kind of intimidating when we are all together. But we love each other. We might not always get along, but we love each other. We love to talk, we love big meals and we love to hug (not always in that order!) I'm also happy and blessed that God has provided me with some of the greatest friends anyone could ask for. Why on earth ya'll put up with me, I'll never know. But thank you for doing so. XOXO!

Okay, enough being serious and all emotional, I'm wearing mascara, I don't want to get all teary eyed.

My list of some things that make me happy and make me smile (in no particular order):

1. Pugs. You can think they are ugly if you want, but I think they are adorable. I hope to one day have a pug, or two. I will name them Frank and Sammy (after Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr).

2. Baseball. Baseball season is now only 38 days away. Some friends and I got our tickets for the Rangers Opening Day this week. Shout out to my friend Stan for hooking us up with tickets before they went on sale to the general public. Wahoo!

Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers

3. Laughing with friends. A friend and I went to the movies on Wednesday night. There were moments when we were both laughing so hard I thought we would be asked to leave the theater. Some of the laughing was at the movie, some of the laughing was at our commentary of the movie. "Hey look, it's Salty!!" Okay, only my friend Monica will get that one, but trust me, it was funny.

Jarrod "Salty" Saltalamacchia. Monica will get the joke.

And possibly Brandy if she has seen the movie Valentine's Day.

4. That I still smile when I see anything about Steve Avery. Before you say, who?, Steve Avery was a pitcher for the Atlanta Braves back in the 1990s. No relation to James Avery or Sean Avery (please don't ask). Yes, I even loved him during his mullet phase (thankfully it was very brief). Last night at the gym I was on the treadmill and Sportscenter was doing a segment on the Atlanta Braves. They showed footage of the 1995 World Series and Steve Avery was on the screen. I smiled.

Steve's rookie card. One of the 196 Steve Avery cards that I own.

5. That Rascal Flatts is going to be guest starring on CSI next week. My favorite band and favorite TV show, together in one. It's like this episode was made especially for me (okay, I know it wasn't, but let me think that).



6. The Dick Van Dyke Show. In case you are new to my blog, one of my favorite actors of ALL TIME is Mr. Dick Van Dyke. If I've had a bad day, or am just kinda feeling, "blah", I can put in a Dick Van Dyke Show DVD (yes, I own all five seasons) and it will turn my mood around. No matter what episode it is, or how many times I've seen it, it will make me laugh. How can you not laugh watching Rob Petrie trip over an ottoman? I'll just go ahead and admit now that I have the theme song of the show as one of my ringtones on my iPhone. There, I said it!!

7. That in some bizzare universe Tom Welling and Shemar Moore might possibly fight over me. Okay, before you think that I've gone delusional and need professional help, I haven't had a Dr Pepper today and I only got about 4 hours of sleep last night, so give me this one. But think about it ladies, wouldn't that be nice?? Go on admit it, you know you wouldn't mind them fighting over you either!!

 

Tom Welling (l) and Shemar Moore (r).

8. Blue Bell Ice Cream. I don't care what you think, it's the best ice cream EVER. In fact just the other night a pint of Dutch Chocolate Blue Bell was calling my name from my freezer. :) I didn't want to be rude, so I got up to see what it wanted. Remember when you were little and your mom made you put the ice cream in a bowl instead of eating it out of the carton? When you are 31 and single, you don't need a bowl. The pint will do just fine!

  


9. Jim Parsons. He stars on the comedy The Big Bang Theory (Monday nights on CBS). He's so adorkable! I **heart** you Jim (even though you are from Texas and mispronounced Jim Bowie's name in that one episode- I have forgiven you and moved on)!



10. Chick Fil A. I've said it before, I'll say it again, it's like manna from heaven!!

11. That Ricky Schroder is still as adorable today as he was back in 1983 when he became my official first crush. And yes, he is going by Ricky again. He was ALWAYS Ricky to me! :)

12. That I get off work at 11:30 today. I have a new schedule at work. I work 8a-5p four days a week, and then either Thursday or Friday (depending on what month, my friend Kelly and I rotate), I only work 8a-11:30a. Thank goodness for flex days!! And today I get to have lunch with my wonderful friend who always finds a way to make me smile! Muah!! XOXO!

The Great Snow of OH-TEN

For those of you who live up north, humor me with this post. I live in Texas. We aren't used to seeing snow. Especially more than an inch or two. In case you haven't heard, some of the Dallas area received over 12 inches of snow last Thursday. It was the most snowfall recorded in a 24 hour period in the Metroplex.

Last Thursday I woke up to find it snowing (and not your typical "Texas snow" where it was maybe one snowflake every few minutes). It had only been snowing for about an hour or so, and the ground and streets were already well covered, so it was snowing pretty hard.

    

    

Outside my apartment Thursday morning, around 7am.

I love our local weathermen, I really do (epecially WFAA's Greg Fields, he's the greatest weatherman ever- but that's a story for another day), so it makes me laugh that Wednesday and even Thursday morning, they were saying, "Well, we might get 1-3 inches on grassy areas, but the snow should stop by late morning. Don't expect it to stick around."

I got to work a little before 9 (in the big pink building as I call it), and it seemed the snow was falling even faster. I saw some of the biggest snowflakes I had ever seen. By late morning we noticed the snow was not stopping, and really showed no signs of stopping. A friend and I attempted to go out at lunch and on our way back, noticed that ice was starting to hit the windshield.

   View from my office window

A little before 2pm my director walked around and told us we could leave. The roads were going to start getting bad and she would rather us all be safe at home (and I agreed). We were told to call the bad weather hotline the next morning to see if we had a delayed start or if we were closed.

  

  

  

 Snow on the drive home from work (I took these while I was stopped, I didn't drive and take pictures at the same time!) : )

Of course when I got home I turned into a giddy kid who had to go out and play in the snow (again, not used to seeing snow, especially this much). Not counting Spring Break of 1996 when I went skiing in New Mexico, the last time I had seen that much snow was in January of 1985 (and I was 6!)

  

Tree outside my apartment

Steps up to my apartmnt

  

My sad attempt at a snowman (again, I don't have practice, and after about 5 minutes I was ready to go inside. I prefer to call him a snow-midget!

About 3pm I had almost 6 inches of snow in my front yard

  

Looking cute in the snow

Outside my bedroom window

Watching the 6pm news, the weathermen kept repeating they were shocked we were getting so much snow and that they expected the roads to be icy in the morning (all the water and "slush" were going to freeze over night). We were about an inch or two away from breaking a record of 7.4 inches of snow in one day. The school closings were pouring in. By 7pm, pretty much every school district in the Dallas/Fort Worth and surrounding areas were going to be closed that Friday. I honestly felt like a kid waiting to hear if I had to go to school or not.  When they got to company closings, mine wasn't listed. About 8:30 I got a text from a co-worker that we were closed the next day. I doubled checked and called the bad weather hotline. Sure enough, we got a "snow day". Wahoo! Most of my friends on Facebook were updating their statuses that their offices were closed the next day (I did have a few friends that had to go in, but they got a late start).  

As late as 10:30pm I looked outside and it was still snowing. The next morning I woke up and was amazed at how much snow was on the ground.

This poor tree is never going to be the same after all this snow.

 

 Outside my balcony

Outside my window. The tree to the right lost a lot of limbs due to the snow.

The field across the street.

 In my front yard, almost 13 inches of snow!

 A view of the street

  A neighbor kid convinced me to make a snow angel..that was cold! Jeans and snow are NOT a warm combo, just FYI!!

My snow angel..my first one since 1985!

 Our poor, poor trees!!

Steps back up to my apartment. It took a while to get down them!

My evening with a Monkee and a Partridge

Thanks to Nick at Nite, during the 80s and early 90s my generation was introduced to great classic shows from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Even though some people might argue that The Monkees (or The Partridge Family for that matter) were hardly "great classic shows", it's because of Nick at Nite I had exposure to both of them.

Now, my favorite of the two was The Monkees and I have loved their music ever since I was little. In college I found out that my roommate Mel also loved The Monkees (it was the start of a beautiful friendship). My favorite of the group was Michael Nesmith (yes, I know, I like goofy looking guys- let's move on), and hers was Davy Jones (who didn't love Davy?) I don't know for how many years now I've been telling her, if Davy Jones ever comes in concert, I'll go with you. Over the years we have missed an opportunity to see him live, until last night.

    

Michael Nesmith and Davy Jones (circa 1966ish)

Davy Jones is currently touring with David Cassidy (this is where The Partridge Family comes in to the story). Mel and I got our tickets a few weeks ago. Originally we had planned to just get "nose bleed" tickets, but at the last minute we were able to get "floor" seats for the same price as nose bleed tickets. And I'm so glad we did!

A view from our seats, section 202, front row.

No disrepect to Mr. Cassidy, but Mel and I were mainly there for Davy Jones (although I remember watching The Partridge Family and did enjoy his performance). We sat next to a nice lady named Tammy who was VERY excited about seeing both of them (if you know me, think about how I would be if I was about to see Dick Van Dyke- yes she was that excited). It was amusing to see alot of women in the 40s and 50s down right giddy about being there, acting like love-struck teenagers again. We saw some interesting outfits too. Sadly I didn't get pictures, but there were "skinny jeans" and fringe jackets and vests. We saw one group where everyone had some form of leopard print on their outfit. Interesting. We got to our seats about 30 minutes before the show started. A nice usher named Roger took our picture for us.

Me and Mel waiting on Davy Jones!

I honestly didn't know what to expect (it has been a while since I've been to a concert that wasn't country or a Christian artist). Davy Jones did not disappoint. Between songs he told jokes and stories. He's actually very funny! He sang all the songs we love from The Monkees! He also sang "Girl" which you might remember from the episode of The Brady Bunch that he was in.

 

 Davy Jones on stage

I noticed towards the end of the show, people from the rows behind us were going down front to take pictures. Since no one stopped them, I followed (easier to ask for forgiveness than permission!) I was right by the stage and at one point and Davy leaned over and shook my hand. Somewhere in section 202 Mel screamed!  :)

Pictures taken when I was able to be right by the stage

David Cassidy came out on stage to sing Davy's last song with him. I was being pushed by a mob of screaming middle aged women, or this might have been clearer.

Like I said before, David Cassidy had a good performance as well, despite technical difficulties. At one point, his electric guitar wasn't working. He did some great improv while they tried to get it fixed. He even joked about it. That is the only thing you can do when that happens. But overall, it was a great night and we had a lot of fun!! And per the comments we were getting on our Facebook statuses, it seems I have a lot of other friends who are Davy Jones fans too! Who knew??

David Cassidy on stage. At one point he even stopped his show to sign an autograph (after the crowd cheered him to do so). They added more security down front after that happened.

This is the look he had after someone yelled for him to take off his shirt. Thankfully he refrained!

At the end of the concert, David told security to let them [the screaming women trying to get to the stage] have fun and they were allowed to come up and shake his hand. I refrained, I just took pictures from my seat. This is where he was telling the women not to pull him off the stage.

I leave you with clips from The Monkees and The Partridge Family!