The Happiness Thread

I was going over some 2013 email newsletters I sent high school coaches, parents and writers I worked with when I came across one of my favorite stories from my early years. Hope it gives you a smile.

...

Nowadays, the rules meetings for all IHSAA and IGHSAU sports are held online. It’s a good system as coaches and officials can “attend” their required meeting on their own time as long as they meet the deadline before the season. But a sentimental part of me misses the old football rules meetings where IHSAA people would travel around the state for one-night seminars with coaches and officials.

In 2001, I was still freelancing and went to a meeting held at The Forum in Dubuque. I had gone the year before and enjoyed mingling with everybody. The meeting was well organized and informative. It was worth the time to go to. I, being shy, sat in the back of the packed room. Near me was Pat Murphy who was the Dubuque Senior football coach at the time. A ways into the meeting, the IHSAA representative mentioned we were going to skip some things as we didn’t have any eight-man football schools in this part of the state. Suddenly, those of us in the back heard Murphy talk. “We played eight-man football last year. We had eleven guys out there, but only eight of them were playing.”

 

Stargate the movie OST is still pretty damn good after all these years.

 

Had a successful virtual program this evening

I was super nervous (as always), and stuttered quite a bit introducing the speaker, but once it got into the Q&A after the presentation, i calmed down a bit.
The speaker had an awesome personality and talkative, so i think that contributed to my calm/ease.

Next one is wednesday, then the author next week!

 

As far as big-screen romps go, this was a great one! And the muzik, especially this, was Awesome!

 

Is this for the restaurant or just what you need to get you through the day without snapping? No judgment, just curious

 

Got a lot done after work today. Felt good. Now I just need to maintain my productive momentum. Which I will do.

 

My boy is six now! I love him so much more than I ever could anything else in the world. Happy birthday, Boy!

 

Goddaughter: I love how you always say women drive you crazy when like 95 percent of the people in your life are chicks.

Me: It's more like 55 percent.

Goddaughter: Oh, along with being a moron, you suck at math. Good to know.

 

Last week I won a charity auction and got to have a fifteen-minute Zoom chat with Josh Dela Cruz. Plus, he called me beautiful, which I'm never going to shut up about cause it made my life.

 

Steve's Froglet Diary #5

Deep in the heart of the English countryside, one intrepid, determined, and now slightly crazed frog hunter ventures forth into the wildest parts of the most rugged terrain... of his garden.


Armed with only a cellphone camera that has dirt and grass taped over it, for camouflage purposes (see previous diary entry), he spends his days living like Bear Grylls could only dream of - surviving off the land, scavenging for natural sources of food... but when that failed, after half an hour, he simply went to his greenhouse and ate a tomato.

(special variety called Tigerella, if you were wondering.)

After a week of fruitless searching since his first sighting, and hiding behind the small frog sculpture to pretend that he was one of them, finally, amongst the pond leaves, one tiny leap of movement was caught. Racing over and leaping on top of it like Steve Irwin grappling a 15ft crocodile, our valiant hero caught hold of his quarry...


He was a fearsome beast but I managed to tame him!

​

 

This week took forever, but it's all good because I get to see the Goose tomorrow! I'm going to spend all day with my niece. My brother says she's excited to see me.

 

Happiness is earbuds in and world out. Nuff said.

 

Have been a little down today, but this silliness cheered me up a bit.

 

Minor things, but I have a full fridge after a grocery run (dessert included) and had a nice phone call with a relative.

 

I made it in the nick of time! I went into the theater room during the last 20 seconds of the last film project. Well, not the last since mine turned out to be the last one after all.
I expected it to go awful, but it didn't. People liked it! I'm done. It's done. School's over. Tomorrow's the last class and then I'm going out for tsipoura with my classmates for one last time. I'm gonna miss them surely but I'm glad to move to the next step now, on my own. I hope I'll be able to keep some contact with them although I doubt it. It was good while it lasted.

 

Last autumn, my goddaughter was using big words whenever she could to show she was growing up. So she told her teacher about how she and her parents were going for a weekend drive to see the fall cleavage.

Cause, you know, cleavage and foliage are almost the same words.

 

Got a bit of a run in on the treadmill after work today. Felt good. Got hella sweaty.

 

Had a video chat with the goddaughter today. Her dad is handsome and her mom is beautiful so it's not surprising she's turning into a pretty young lady.

I'm not normally this overprotective, but I'm hoping boys will always have to stay six feet away from her.

 

I was disappointed that none of my (there weren't many) high school girlfriends' fathers never played the "just cleaning my gun" card when I came to pick them up. I might have ended up spending the evening talking firearms with dad rather than getting up to the usual mischief.

Spoiler

One of the dads was a Mennonite, one was a professor of Biblical Archaeology, one was... well, come to think of it, there really wasn't a third. So now you know.

 

Oh, I couldn't point a gun at them. A) That's her father's responsibility. B) Pretty sure Cassie is going to take a Hunter's Safety course when she's old enough so she might return fire. C) Right now, she thinks all boys are morons especially her father and godfather.

 

The last couple of nights at the high school garden, a young couple has walked by with their young son in a stroller. Both nights, he has said "Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii" to me. I've waved back and both of us were a little happier than we were before.

 

Spent some quality time with a friend today. It was good to see him.