Surprises

Lots of surprises these days! Good surprises, bad surprises, we all love surprises.

Suprise #1: The Toro "guaranteed to start" lawnmower didn't start. Clearly Step #1 needs to be renaming the motto. Anyway, $25 later, a nice man I found on Craig's List came and mowed by overgrown lawn (I know it was overgrown because he said "there might be a little more dead grass left on the lawn then you want). However, this turned out to be a good surprise. Why? Because the man refused to use his push mower and mowed by lawn with a riding mower! No joke. This officially means I have not been dreaming for the past 2.5 years: my lawn is of above average size. Anyway, Surprise #1 also led me to discover I have the ability to hoist this lawnmower into the back of Scarlet the Camry without giving myself a hernia. Even the lawn shop guy was pretty impressed (he needed MY help getting it out of the trunk). So, Surprise #1 while a little stressful has reinforced my superpowers.

Surprise #2: Imagine this: 6:30 A.M., taking a nice brisk walk through the neighborhood, and BOOM! a car backfires. Stella makes a 180 degree turn so fast that she comes out of her harness and leaves me holding the bag, er, leash. I screamed as loud as I could, ran to her, and literally flung myself on top of her grabbing whatever I could. She was too scared to move. [For those of you who believe this is overreacting, YOU try to chase a schipperke. Let me know how that works out for you.] Anyway, I was bleeding, on the ground, clutching at Stella every which direction - when SURPRISE! My screams were heard and a fellow walker came running with her seemingly well behaved poodle. Were that not a big enough of a surprise, Stella started panicking and when she panics she sheds. I was sweating. Therefore I have black hair all over my arms, face, hair, legs...it wasn't a good sight. SURPRISE! The walk got cut short this morning!

Surprise #3: Fun deliveries at work. Makes me realize what great friends/family/co-workers I have. Right before my birthday I received the most beautiful white themed flowers from some great partners I work with on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. All of my favorites were included! Then, Molly my sister sent me flowers after the NY trip. Then today I got a half bushel of fresh Clanton peaches! Tomorrow night they get cut up and frozen. It just doesn't get any better. These kind of surprises are welcome anytime and the more the better!

Surprise #4: Too many parents-to-be are keeping secrets! Two of you are refusing to tell me the sex of the baby, and one of you is refusing to tell me the name of the baby. This makes it very difficult for me to figure out what to knit the baby. Hopefully they come to their senses and at least give me a hit. Yellow hats do NOT look good on girls or boys.

Hope everyone is having a great week. It's a three paycheck month - SURPRISE!