A Few Things to Make Me Smile

I've had a rough few weeks. Lots of things haven't gone the way I planned, I've had quite a few disappointments, and I've been worrying about too much. Nothing life-threatening, but when they all pile up, it sometimes seems overwhelming. Thankfully, I have friends and family who help me out of the doldrums, even if it's for just a little while. But I was starting to think there was no end in sight. Then on Wednesday night I was driving down the freeway and noticed a truly spectacular sunset—and then I looked out the other side of my car and saw an equally spectacular rainbow. And suddenly I remembered how blessed I was. It was a good reminder.

Then yesterday I was looking through recent pictures on my phone, and I remembered I had taken a few random pictures of things that just made me happy. Quite a brilliant idea, I think. So here you go, some stuff that has made me smile in the last two months.

Yes, they're from Easter. I love the spring-colored wrappers.

My nephew's bed. The turtle taking a ride on the frog who is eating the lizard's tail? Fabulous!

Stacks of colorful Zumba pants. Oh, yeah!

And my lawn may be a mess, but at least my apple tree is alive and well.

And I just found the official pictures and videos of my Spartan race, which also made me smile. I'll send you the link to the video of me climbing the slippery wall if you ask nicely (because I totally rocked it), and here are a few pictures. First, here's me army crawling under the barbed wire. Please notice the nicely toned muscles in my shoulders and ignore the flabby upper arms. Thanks. :)

And here's the three of us getting ready to jump over the fire pit at the end of the race. Proof that we were actually dirty. Aroo! (No, I don't know the significance of "Aroo!" but apparently it's a Spartan thing, so there you go.)