Smile Sighting #52

Another picture smile sighting!  Roxy took over my Pillow Pet as soon as it walked in the door many months ago.  She'll drag it room to room for her convenience. :)

Smile Sighting #51

My smile sighting is a picture this time.  Sarah, John, Thomas, Charles (3 weeks old!!) and I went to an Art Walk on Main Street the other day.  The majority of the time, Thomas was on John's shoulders and was completely unamused with our adventure.  John, however, was REALLY excited about the kettle corn! :)

Smile Sighting #50

This wasn't funny at the time.  However, now I get the giggles when I think about it.

Some of you may know Roxy, 1 of 2 of our dogs.  She's adorable, sweet, laid back and the stereotypical "lap dog."

At 2:30 in the morning, I get woken up by her, sitting on my chest and pawing at me.  Hmm... something is wrong.  Now that I'm awake, I have to pee so I go to the bathroom.  When I get up, she dashes right to the door.  Ya... she definitely has to go.  She's NEVER woken me up in the middle of the night to go.  I put my clothes on and walk out with her.  She DASHES out the door, which is strange because she always waits for an invitation.  I hope she's not sick.

She chases a bunny across the back yard, turns around and asks to be let back in.

SERIOUSLY?!

Grocery Shopping

A woman pushing a car, and a woman in one of those motorized ones meet in the grocery store.  What do they do?  Play chicken.  No joke.  It was hilarious!

They knew each other and laughed after crashing together. 

In the Park

Sarah and I decided to eat our lunch in Bandshell Park in Ames on Saturday.  It was one of the first nice days of Spring.  Take advantage!  We sat and talked for a long time afterwards.  As we were chatting, I was people watching.

A guy sauntered in with his guitar and sat under a tree.  He was just strumming for a while and then started to SING really loud.  Made me smile! :)

Smile Sighting #49

I went in to test for a Detention Officer job with the Story County Jail.  The test was both written and physical.  Surprisingly, I wasn't all that nervous compared to other job ventures.  I was worried, however, that I would be one of few token women that showed up.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that nearly HALF of the people in the crowd were women.  Woot!

Smile Sighting #48

This one takes some explanation.  We have a group project due in Women Studies 333 (Women in Leadership).  There are four girls in the group including me.  We'll call them "M, B and C."

As you might already know, my Dad died while deployed in Iraq in 2007.  Right before the semester began (at the end of December), C's sister died in a nasty motorcycle accident.  Then, as we're preparing to give the presentation portion of our group project, M's Dad has a massive heart attack (ends up making it, but it was hairy for a while there) and B's cousin dies.  It was a mess and we were scrambling to try to get this done in the midst of their personal crises.  The professor ended up extending the paper portion of the project because, apparently, we were not the only group having issues.

We met the Tuesday before our Thursday presentation to finalize details.  We walked over to the Memorial Union food court and started to hash out how everything would go.  Suddenly, our conversation took a turn and we began to discuss our personal experience with death (and near death).  This ended in all four of us either full blown bawling, or with a good amount of tears flowing.  I should note hear that NONE of us knew each other before this semester.  In addition, none of us had worked together or talking extensively with each other before this project.  Purely because of shared experiences, we clicked and had a bawl-fest in the middle of campus.

We all left pretty somberly, but emailed each other following up to make sure we were all "okay."  The next day class came around, we discussed how that whole conversation went down.  One of the girls said, "Wow... that was intense... we just had a hard-core Ya-Ya Sisterhood moment."  She followed up later saying that, "She felt she had FINALLY made a real connection with somebody on campus."

So, I know this isn't exactly a Smile Sighting dripping with giggles and rainbows, but it still made me smile inside.  Sometimes, you find the right person at the right time who serves a purpose you didn't even know you were in need of.

Smile Sighting #47

Have you ever gone through Bill's check out line at the Ames Target?  You should.

He's amazing.  He's loud, enthusiastic and he wears super awesome suspenders.  If you haven't "experienced" him yet, you should.  It makes my day!

Smile Sighting #46

Every year, Liberty Tax, a tax preparation company in Ames, hires somebody to don the Statue of Liberty costume and hold a sign up at the corner of Main Street and Duff Ave.  Usually, this person somberly stands there, presumably hating their life.

The guy they hired this year is amazing!  He DANCES on the corner with extreme enthusiasm.  He smiles and waves at EVERY car that passes.  Makes my day!

Smile Sighting #45

I went with my best friend Sarah to pick up her son, Thomas, from daycare.  A little girl behind us giggled.  Her mother asked what she was laughing at and the girl said,
"Look!  He has two mommies!"

Smile Sighting #44

While riding shotgun with Josh the other day, we passed the intersection of Welch and Lincoln Way in town.  Perched on one of those control boxes for the street lights was a single can of Spam!  LOL.

Smile Sighting #43

A foundation approached me a few months ago.  They are the Children of Fallen Patriots.  They wanted to know if I was a student and if they could assist with tuition, books, etc.  Unfortunately, I had already graduated and told them so.  I assume then, that there was nothing they could really do for me.

She casually said, "Oh, well how much are your student loans?"  I told her... nearly $50,000.  She says, "Okay, we we can take care of that for you."

What?!

I was dumfounded and in a state of complete disbelief.  I've operated on the "I'll believe it when I see it" wavelength concerning "Dad stuff" since I've been lifted up and let down so many times.  The VA has jaded me.

Some paper work (tedious but totally worth it) and several weeks later, and my balance with the federal government is ZERO.  And then it got real.

I have so many emotions.  This is great, but at what cost?  I'm getting this "handed" to me because of an immeasurable loss.  What about others like me, who lost their Dad, but not in these circumstances?  My best friend lost her Dad in a freak accident.  No massive amounts of money handed to her.  I feel a bit of guilt.  I also feel a little legitimized or... understood.  It is easy to be "forgotten" or have DAD forgotten.  My emotions and the struggle I've gone through is... sort of recognized.  It's really hard to explain (or even for ME to understand).

When it comes down to it, though, NOBODY graduates with their BA (especially if they took as long as me) with NO debt.  It just doesn't happen.  This is a bigger gift than just throwing me money.  This will impact the rest of my life immensely... and in ways that I probably don't yet understand.

Granted, I'm going between and smile, a look of confusion, and then sadness... but ultimately, this is a BIG smile sighting.

Smile Sighting #42

I love it when I catch people picking their nose in the car.  :)

Smile Sighting #41

There's a woman who "man's" the crosswalk on the corner near our house after school lets out.  She is differently-abled and uses a walker.  She's always got some knitting project going that she works on during the "down time" between hoards of children and parents.  This winter, though, she has a new project.  She started bringing an ice scraper like this to work on the condition of the sidewalks while she waits.  Awesome!

Smile Sighting #40

Josh and I took a trip to Lowe's (hardware store for those of you who don't know) a few days ago.  We were buying wood, nails, etc to hand-make a storage solution for the excess of yarn I've managed to accumulate.  We walked down the aisle for nails and see a man and his "little one" (couldn't have been more than 2 years old) shopping together.  They had matching hand knitted beanie hats (cute factor #1).  Upon closer inspection, the "little one" was wearing a pair of pink Chucks (cute factor #2).  I then realized, assuming standard gender identifiers, that a dad brought his daughter shopping at the hardware store and was identifying and explaining the uses for the various things he was getting (cute factor #3).

Of course, I couldn't help but picture Josh and our future "little one," regardless of gender, doing the same thing (cute factor #4).

Smile Sighting #39

I haven't worked at the school in 3 weeks now.  I promised that I would return for a visit (and volunteer work if my schedule permitted).  I have not done this yet, and honestly, I assumed that I would be forgotten pretty quickly.  I was wrong... concerning one student anyway.

I got a text from a high school friend that works there saying, "When can M call you from my phone?"  I responded that I was free to do so anytime that day.  A couple hours later, M called me from her phone.  He told me he missed me.  He told me he got a new teacher (news to me... apparently there was a debacle concerning her license).  He told me they found somebody new to replace me and that he only liked her a LITTLE.  He also told me that his leg hurt today so he wrapped it up and is only wearing one shoe.

My friend got back on the phone after he needed to return to class and told me that he felt that I didn't care about him since I hadn't returned yet.  She, of course, felt the need to rectify this by letting him call me.  Adorable.  I miss him (and many others) dearly.  I told her to give his family my phone number in case they need a babysitter sometime!  :)

Smile Sighting #38

My brother, Tom text messages me last night to tell me he loves me, and he can't wait to see me on Friday. We proceed to chat back and forth for a few messages and then he calls me.

He says, "Hi.  I hope it was okay that I called you.  I just wanted to hear your voice."

Too cute.

New Experience

One of my Women's Studies classes has a woman who is deaf.  She has two interpreters that follow her around class to class.  We had to do the "introductions" the first day and she stood up and explained that she was pursuing her THIRD degree.

Smiles.

Smile Sighting #37

Since we've been back for winter break, we've had HUGE "pools" of ice dispersed around the playground green space.  It looks like there was a flash flood and then an immediate flash freeze.  I swear it has kid magnets in it.  As soon as the kids come running out the door, their eyes are FIXED on it.

Of course, other EA's and I have been watching it like hawks.  In fact, I've been essentially stationed at the edge of biggest pool so I can guard it.  The rule is, nobody can be on the ice.  So, we've had a lot of bummed out and bored kids on the playground.

I was about 2 minutes late coming out for my "duties" today so plenty of kids were already running around.  I look over at the pool and I SWEAR there are 50 kids on this pool, crawling around on their knees.  The other EA is over there watching.

I walk up and ask what the deal is.  The EA tells me that since they can't find anything else to do out there, we've allowed them to play on the ice on their KNEES only and ONLY if they have boots and snow pants on.

So, my recess was spent watching hoards of children crawling, rolling, spinning and giggling on the ice. It was pretty hilarious and fun to watch them have SO much fun on something I do whatever I can to avoid.  So, whenever I get some snow pants, I'm totally going out there to roll around. :)

A note.

Unfortunately, I had to quit my job at the elementary school.  I'm going back to school and I couldn't get my class schedule to work around my schedule.  Fortunately, I'll be able to stay on as a volunteer.  So, I'm changing the blog to be a general "smile sighting" site rather than just those seen at school.  Hope you still enjoy!

L