Fully Alive…Ready to Smile

I had such a good day. Not a very productive one, but very good. Sometimes I think trading productive for good is alright : )

Let’s see…I started off by getting to sleep in until about 8:45. Always a treat. Then we headed to town at about 10:30, making what was supposed to be a quick stop to feed our friends pets and check the litter box. We’ve been taking care of these animals for a week. In that week, contrary to my instructions, I’ve been cleaning the litter box EVERY day. I was told to change it every other day. But early in the week I noticed one of the ornery critters was taking a real liking to the plant in the corner of the dining room and using IT as a litter box. Ew, ew, ew!!! So on that very maddening day, there I was, on my hands and knees, sweeping up dirt, picking up clumps of kitty doo doo with paper towel and muttering under my breath the whole time. “I swear, kitty, if this happens again you are going to be so out in the snowbank. And don’t think I’m kidding either!!” I thought maybe she was rebelling because I hadn’t cleaned the litter box the day before, but when I went to check, it wasn’t even that dirty. So I cleaned it again and today she pulled the same nasty little job. This time I cleaned up the mess and moved the plant into a bedroom. Then I texted our friends “I apologize if your cat and your plant are dead when you get home : )” He texted me back, “Just having lunch at Planet Hollywood. Good about the cats!” Hee, hee. I know he would probably be up for the kitty going bye, bye, but try explaining that to his 2 daughters.

Anyway, back to the good part of the day. I brought Aidan to Becky’s for the day (sending you a shout out, dear friend!!) and Ella came with me to the house. She has been begging to paint. So I intentionally had left her closet unpainted in her bedroom and today was the day. She put on some painting clothes and went to town.

She was sooo proud of herself. She did a pretty good job too.

Then she went to Kathy’s for the afternoon (hey, hey, hey Hottie! Holla!…I’m such a dork) and I was free to paint. So I thought. In the following 4 hours I received a very unexpected phone call from my dear friend Rachelle who lives in Calgary, Alberta (she was also one of my bridesmaids) saying that there is a seat sale with WestJet, can she come visit in April? Yes, yes, yes!!!

And now I have one thing to say…

I AM SO EXCITED!!

She has never been to visit just for the sake of visiting me in all the years she’s been out there. Yes, she was here for our wedding, but that was a different kind of visit, obviously.

Let me give you some background. Rachelle moved to my town when we were in grade 5. She moved just a couple miles from my house (which is practically like being neighbors when you live in the country). We went on the same bus and everything. We hit it off big time. She was very quickly one of my BFF’s. Literally. Her family lived here for 2 years and then her dad got transferred back to Calgary. That was in 1992. Sixteen years ago. I’ve been to visit her about half a dozen times and of course like I said, she was here for our wedding. We made a pact a number of years back that we would keep up mailing letters…gasp…yes, snail mail. Real letters. We don’t email each other ever and that’s the best promise I ever made. I so enjoy getting letters from her. We try and correspond monthly and we have kept our friendship as real as if she were here.

So when she called me today and asked when and how long she could come for, I replied whenever and for as long as she liked. I can’t wait. Yippee!!

• ^{UPDATE: I got an email this morning (Friday) letting me know that her flight would be arriving on Friday, April 18 at 9:21 a.m. and she staying until Monday the 21st.  She’s really coming.  Yay!!}

The second thing that made my day so great was that my hubby took the day off today to spend time installing our hardwoods. It was so nice to be in the house with someone else (especially him). Although I constantly stopped what I was doing to go chat with him or flap my hands and exclaim “I’m so excited!” (in reference to Rachelle coming).

Then a third thing happened to make me smile. Pam, whom I met first from her comments on my blog and then later I met her in person when I went to her new house that she and her husband are building down the road from us to do a decorating consultation with her, showed up at my house today with a large vanilla steamer (drool) to say hi and see our house. I was so blessed. Thank you so much, Pam. It was so thoughtful and such a nice interlude in my day.

Here’s some pictures from my day…

A peek at my colors and the nifty new hardwoods that my very talented husband is installing.

Here’s what EVERY wall looked like after I sprayed the casings. This is our bedroom which I have yet to paint. That brown spray is shiny and glossy, meaning that it has to be sanded really well and then primed over so that my light (white in this case) paint will cover it. LOTS of work. I’m not just blowing smoke here, people. It really is quite a bit of elbow grease. But I’m loving it and I’m so proud of all my hard work. I know, I’m very modest.

So now I’m off to Tara’s for a little R&R to watch the new tv show The Lipstick Jungle or something. I was going to go paint some more, but I’ve decided to let my good day just wind to a close. Tomorrow is another day after all. And I think it’s going to be one filled with shopping. Happy sigh!