Smug Marrieds: Fishsticks? Really??

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Today we've had the pleasure of hosting dear, dear friends of ours who used to live in Greensboro but abandoned us over 13 years ago to live in Connecticut. They were in town for a wedding and came to spend the night with us. We've been eagerly anticipating their visit for a month and spent the better part of the weekend getting the house in order--cleaning, stocking the fridge with food and wine, admonishing the cats to be on their best behavior, etc. 

They weren't arriving until this afternoon so I went to my morning workout class as usual. When I walked into the house, I froze. No. He didn't. He wouldn't have. 

"Blair?" I called. I walked down the hall and found him sitting in our breakfast room, eating lunch. "What did you make? What is that smell?"

"Fishsticks," he said, munching on one while holding another out to me. "Want one?"

"The entire house smells like fish," I said. 

"Mmmm," said Blair, cutting into another fishstick. 

"Why not just fry up some bacon while you're at it?" I asked. "The house reeks."

"You exaggerate," said Blair.

"Walk out and walk back in and tell me I'm exaggerating--never mind," I said, as he started to get up from the table. "Just go grab the scented candles. All of them." 

Fortunately, we were able to rid our home of the eau de fish smell well before our guests arrive. 

Why? Why do they do that??

Cheers,

Dena

Fun Friday: Mount Airy

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Heart With Joy on bookshelf - YEA!!This Friday we ignored the rain clouds gathering overhead and ventured up the road a ways to Mt. Airy, i.e., "Mayberry" and home of all things Andy Griffith. We didn't have any real plans for the day. Just thought we'd take a look around, eat lunch, see what there was to see and head home. Mt. Airy is less than an hour away from us, so it was a good, quick trip. 

The first fun thing to happen is that we walked into Pages bookstore and I saw my friend Steve Cushman's book, Heart With Joy, on a shelf. Had to whip out the i-phone and send him a quick picture. The next fun thing is that I discovered that not only does Stephen King have a new book out, it's a new book in the Dark Towers series. Hel-loooo! How did I miss that? We bought the Steven King book, a book called Wild by Cheryl Straying that several people have recommended to me in the last week, and a cookbook by Olivia Newton John. (I am a SUCKER for cookbooks.) 

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What do Deer and "Hell Yeah!" Have In Common?

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I was talking to a friend the other day about living joyfully. Writing, relationships, exercise, chores... everything in life flows so much smoother on the days I approach life with a playful "let's just see what happens here" type of excited expectancy. I think the Universe works to bring us what we want when we don't spend so much time and energy fighting for what we think we need. 

I was thinking about this on today's trail run. I've been doing a trail run once a week after I work out with a friend. We work upper body for about 45 minutes and then I run. Last week, I was miserable. My arms and shoulders hurt from the workout and I brought this into my run. My mantra that day was something along the lines of, "Ow, this hurts, this sucks, I'm not going to make it."  Guess what? I had a crappy run, walking a good part of it. 

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