"Smile"

Blue Monday? Monday morning gotcha down? What to do, what to do?
The answer: Just SMILE!

I got up this morning -correction, I was awakened several times between 5:30 a.m. and 6:45 a.m. by the heavy thud, thud, thud, thumping sounds of the almost 16-year-old here with the heaviest foot tread, I swear, in all of creation! There I was sleeping away, so nicely, and she comes thumping, thudding, clumping, clunking back and forth from her room to the bathroom, to the kitchen to the bathroom, to her room again, then back to the bathroom, the kitchen, the bathroom. You get the picture, I'm sure! But, I had to SMILE cause the kid at least got herself up, ready to go to school without the help of anyone else.

The son-in-law actually got up today WITHOUT any assistance from his alarm clock too! Now there's a record breaker to start the day. Normally, his alarm starts going off about 6 a.m. and continues going off, for what seems to be forever before he hits the snooze button. I think he hits the snooze button about ten seconds before the timer says for the alarm to go off again on the snooze button or something like that. But this is definitely a first I do believe for him to "rise, shine, make coffee" all without that horrible loud alarm clock of his going off virtually non-stop for about 45 minutes to an hour. That was definitely worth a big SMILE!

Shortly after 8 a.m., I could hear the granddaughter upstairs talking - this would be my little Princess, Maya. She was jabbering at first, then launched into song doing her favorite numbers - "Twinkle, Twinkle, little star" - she reviewed that song several times and then went into the "Polliwog" song, which I really get a kick out of hearing her try to do that one. Finally, shortly before 9 a.m. her mother brought her downstairs and she was SMILING, big time, which always makes me SMILE when she gets up in good humor. Usually means the odds are that today will be a relatively nice day that way.

Then around 10 a.m., the phone rang. As seems to be the norm of late, it was this one particular bill collection agency and obviously, the callers are people working at an "outsourced" job because none of them can pronounce my daughter's first name - or her last name - correctly and neither name are difficult or strange by English-speaking standards. The caller always asks first for my daughter and I always tell the caller "She's not here." Then the caller always asks if she has a spouse and would the spouse be available. Nope, he's never here either. The last question is if there is a better time for them to call and really, quite frankly, as long as I am the one answering the phone, no, there is no better time because I'm always gonna tell ya that no, neither one of them is here. Today, when the caller asked if there was a better time to phone them, I said perhaps six a.m. or after 10:30 p.m. The bill collector thanked me and hung up. And I told my daughter if the damned phone rings now at 6 a.m. some morning this week, I'm really going to kick myself for having made that time suggestion there. But if they don't call back for a long time, that will really also make me SMILE!

What's the point now behind all this business here and the repetition of the word SMILE?

Well, it's all because, you see, my blogger buddy, "Smalltown RN" up in British Columbia gave me an award today - The "You Make me Smile" award and just as her blog almost always brings smiles galore to my face, I wanted to let her know that I do think a SMILE can go a long, long way to making for a nice - or nicer day. Don't you agree?

So with that in mind - here then is the "You Make Me Smile" award I received:
Now, I'm going to veer off the beaten path here and not assign this badge of honor to any one particular blogger on my list of favorites, but rather to ask anyone who thinks a SMILE can make your day or someone else's just a little bit better to take it, put it on your blog and SMILE all the while you're doing it. When things maybe seem not so nice, not so easy, not so friendly, just come back and look at it on your blog and let it ease some of those troubles away. Okay?

And don't forget too about the "Warm the Globe Through Friendship, one blog at a time" campaign. Pick up the emblem for that and display it on your blog; add your name and blogsite too the list on my post below here about this new and innovative idea Vic Grace at Cariboo Ponderer has about spreading friendship around the world through our blogs. Check it out and join us in this little venture, won't you? Come join our growing group to help make the whole world a friendlier place.

And, whatever you do, just try to SMILE!