Sharing Joy - The Girlies Way

I have realized once again that being a few months shy of 50 and having two active littles in the house exhausts me.   I love having the girlies here but after a few days of togetherness we all start to get stir crazy.  So, this morning we all got up, got dressed and headed to Goodwill.  Little did I know how a couple hours out of the house would refresh us all.  And in ways I never imaged.

A few years ago my word of the year was JOY.  I loved living that word.  I found joy in so many unexpected places.  Today my world is still filled with joy and my granddaughters bring so much of it into my life.  What I tend to forget is how much joy that can give others.  As I am walking through the aisles with Bella in the stroller and Bailey walking along side we can across a lady who started a conversation with Bailey.  Bailey is very friendly so she found out the lady's name and told her that Bella wasn't her sister but her cousin and shared their names and how old they are.  Carol told me she had 9 grandchildren aged 21 to 15 months.  We chatted for a few minutes and off we both went, me with Bella and Bailey both waving bye to Carol.  At the checkout two older women both wanted to wait on us, because of the girls.  When we were done checking out, the clerk didn't want us to leave as she was having some much fun the the girls.  Joy - I got filled by watching the interaction between my girlies and strangers - and the strangers got filled just from talking to the girls.  Amazing.

Here's a funny little story from last night.  I was sending Brent out for McDonald's and I asked Bailey what she wanted "a cheeseburger or chicken nuggets?"  She replied "a cheeseburger".  I asked her to ask Bella what she wanted and Bailey told me she didn't think she knew Bella's language.  I laughed and told her she was the best one to translate Bella's language since was the closest in age to her.  Very seriously, Bailey leaned down and asked "Bella, do you want chicken nuggets or a cheeseburger" and Bella answered with a baby babble.  Bailey looked up at me and said "Bella wants a cheeseburger, Nana!"  Love, love, love those girlies and those moments.

So as tired as I am and as messy as my house is, I treasure and cherish these moments.  The children of my children - the best gift of all.
 

Something to Brag About!

I am thrilled to be chosen as co-host at Sunday Scrappin'! It's been a long time since something made me smile as big as being chosen did. I have been a loyal weekly contributor and am honored to have been chosen to co-host. I can't wait to come up with some challenges and get to work.

On another note, my plan today was to clean. I had another stomach/back ache attack last night and was up for two hours. I took three baths, the hot water running down my back seems to help, I had the heating pad out, I woke Dave to rub my back and I got sick. And since I was up so long I didn't get up until almost 9 this morning. Dave wanted to do something together so I suggested Goodwill. It's not enough that I work in a thrift store, I have to shop them on my day off. We went to Ft Myers and stopped at the GW on Daniels, stopped for a late breakfast at Mimi's Cafe, stopped at my fav Goodwill in South Ft Myers. We would have stopped at Salvation Army but they are closed on Sunday (good for them!) so I asked Dave if we could stop in Bonita. Come to find out the little store in the strip mall is a Clearance Center and everything is half price and they opened up a great big new Goodwill in an old department store. Awesome! I had a great day and it was fun to spend it with Dave and Bailey. I will post my finds later this week. So, I guess my cleaning will have to wait until tomorrow.

Off to post my junk to eBay!