Nice.

At a mad dash to the grocery store this morning, i was forced to slow down and "smell the roses". i was in a super-hurry; i had forgotten today was the Christmas Party at Tread's school- and i had signed up to bring juice boxes. No juiceboxes!

I also wanted to get the hell outta the store because i still had obcene amounts of glitter on my face from a Clown Gig yesterday. We were running late this morning...if i thought i'd be going somewhere besides taking the kid to school, i would've spent a little more time washing that stuff off!

Anyway...for some reason, i was sitting in the parking lot for a minute. I guess i was texting, or something mult-tasking-crazy-inahurry, but i happened to look in my review mirror right when a guy bent over to pick something up. It was right near my jeep, is why i guess i even noticed...so i saw that it was a wallet, with enough cash that i could see it from the jeep--in the rearview. The noteworthy thing is that this guy didn't even hesitate, he went right inside to turn it in.

(...and no, he didn't march inside to buy groceries. i saw him at the customer service desk when i went inside....)

That was a promising event to witness, but maybe not enough to blog about...until my next encounter.

This lady was definitely not in a hurry.

In fact, she was in my way.
I was hustling towards the check-out, and she had stopped her cart in my path to look at coupons. The space to get past her was marginal, but due to my time-crunch, i pushed on through. I kinda knocked her cart out of the way, unintentionally and was hoping maybe she didn't notice.

"Hey!" she called.

I'm thinking: "oops!" and was getting ready to toss a "sorry!" over my shoulder as i rushed to check-out.
Before i could say anything, she beat me to it: "You've got Kibbles & Bits in your cart...would you like a coupon for that?"

This lady had coupons for everything, it turned out...coupons in an envelope, coupons in the cart, some in her purse's front pocket, and inside the purse....and she couldn't find the Kibbles & Bits coupon, but "knew she had just seen it a second ago."

So, while she nervously poured over this huge coupon collection, i learned that her father had just passed away at age 93. He lived in Tennesee and she had been driving from Houston to his house for the past 3 years, so he wouldn't have to go into a nursing home. This is her first Christmas without him.

She was coming through Nacogdoches to buy her kids some groceries; one is a teacher and the other is working on his masters. They all love animals and she stocks them up on dogfood and catfood whenever she comes to visit. She was very proud of her kids. I told her that they were lucky she helped them out like this, and she said she doubted they felt that way. I hope she's wrong.

Like me, she also had a cup of coffee from Java Jacks to accompany her grocery shopping. She was so dang friendly, and so determined to find that coupon, that i decided to forget my rush. I didn't even care about my goofily glittered face. (Based on her eye-shadow selection, i suspected she might have even liked it.) She talked, i listened...she shuffled little papers, i sipped coffee. She finally found my coupon--took scissors out of her purse to cut off the expiration date--and saved me a dollar! That was worth every minute.

I'm about to turn in for the night and was just reflecting on my day. I was very motivated to write about it as soon as i got home, but i Got Busy again. I wanted to be sure and slow down enough to remember those warm, fuzzy feelings i had this morning...nice people doing nice things.

I am sure it happens way more than I realize and I'm just too busy to notice.

Christmastime is here!

wow. where did the last several weeks go? thanksgiving came and went in a dizzying blur of grandparents, gobbling and goofing off!

its way late and i can't sleep, but i figured i'd check in.
i did say i'd do that more often, didn't i?

since i'm too tired to write about all the past weeks events...i'll try to summarize.

i am so thankful for all the wonderful people in my life. It is such a joy to watch my son's relationship with my parents blossom into something special. It makes me smile just thinking aobut it.

My friends are priceless...i even love the friends of my friends. what would we do without each other? I don't even want to know.

there are so many fun festivities around town this time of year...its fabulous! i think that's why i couldn't sleep tonight; i keep thinking about all of the fun things to do over the next few weeks. I've also been trying to process all the folks and fun from the last few days. (Friday Raku party with the "Dirt Dobbers" Ceramics club, Saturday 9 Flags Festival, and all that entails, Entertaining at the Art Center, Christmas Parade, then 2 parties, Sunday Christmas Cantata at church! whew!)

To think that its only just started....
i'll try to be better about staying in touch here. I think my Sleepytime Tea is kicking in.

I'm sending out warm wishes to all the people i love!!!