TILTW: 4/6-4/13

* It's not something brand new that I learned this week... more like something that's ingrained into me even more: How mother trucking blessed I am. It's not about being perfect, it's not about owning a beautiful home and wearing fancy clothes. Rather, it's about who I am as a person. It's about the love in my heart and around me. It's about my Lovie and the kind of child she is and the kind of person I'm raising her to be. It's about being truly grateful for everything I have, everything I am. EVERY DAY. It's about not letting the negativity that others exude take away from how grateful I am for my life. It's about being present every day. It's about being present, being active in living, being grateful.

* Mammograms really aren't so bad but I really hate how my boobs sweat when not in a bra- that skin on skin contact (I have huge boobs) is not enjoyable. Gross. Someone needs to invent boob deodorant or something.

* For a while now, I've been seeing blog posts about people trying to direct other bloggers to disable the Captcha on their comments. I always kinda rolled my eyes at these posts because I just didn't think it was a big deal...until I discovered the amazing community over at Yeah Write and started reading and wanting to comment on some amazing blogs- some of which have the Captcha enabled. Holy shit is it a pain in the ass to click on the comment link, create a comment, click reply and then be asked to prove I'm not a robot by trying to figure out WTF two blurry, slanted "words" are. Please visit this post and read more about Captcha and disable your Captcha. PLEASE! I used to have my comments open to anybody, even anonymous folk. That's when I got slammed with spam. Once I disabled the anonymous, no more spam. So you CAN have a blog without the Captcha and without spam/robots.

* I had a physical last week and got the results from my blood work yesterday. Everything looks fine except for one thing: I have mild diabetes. I can't say I'm all that surprised, but it still saddens me. And I feel a bit angry, too (mostly at myself). It's a damn good thing I feel so blessed in life EVERY DAY. It's a damn good thing I'm all about about being present, being active in living, being grateful. I may write more about all this at a later date. I'm not brushing this under the rug or something. I'm just digesting it all, I guess.

* Again, this isn't something I learned this week so much as it is something that's been proven: Lovie is such a sweet girl. My husband's reply to this is, "Give her time." Heh. Seriously though, this little chica and her big heart amazes me every single day. Yesterday we stopped at the park again. It was truly a picture perfect day and she asked so why not? She wanted to play in the sand box and it's too hard to keep her out (blech) so play she did. Shortly after, a smaller girl, about 1 (tops), comes over to her and gets right in her face. Lovie just kind of looks at the baby and keeps shoveling some sand. I sat a bit away on a bench watching; the baby's dad stood closer watching (he let the baby do her own thing but was right there to scoop her up when/if needed). The baby reached for the shovel and the dad distracted the baby by throwing a red ball her way. This worked for 10 seconds before she wanted Lovie's shovel again. Lovie just kind of looked at her like WTF and kept shoveling. She didn't push the baby, wasn't mean, didn't shout "NO!" or anything; she just went about her business. The dad scooped the baby up and tried getting her to do something else and Lovie and I started chatting about the sand when the baby came back. "Why don't you let her play with the shovel, too?" I asked Lovie. I didn't tell her, I just asked. Lovie allowed it. "That's great," I said. "Let's see if she can fill your bucket." And the baby did just that (well, she tried). Lovie stood there holding the bucket while the baby played with the shovel until she got bored and played again with her ball and Lovie took the shovel back.  It's not the most awesome thing in the world, no; Lovie's not some gifted sharer, no; but I'm just so proud that she didn't just scream at the kid or shove her like has happened to her so many times in her young life. A few minutes later, some kids Lovie's size showed up and started running around the playground equipment so Lovie followed them, her "friends" as she called them. "You don't want to play in the sand anymore?" I asked. "No, I go play with my friends."

* Please. If you get anything, do anything from this post, please READ THIS. #fuckyouALS

Happy Friday the 13th!!