Smile of the Day ~ Life before Cell Phones

My sister sent me this in an email this morning.. and it did make me smile.. I thought instead of sending it around in an email I would go ahead and post it here.. I am pretty sure a lot of my readers can relate.

If you are 36, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning....Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways...yadda, yadda, yadda
And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of forty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

1) I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

2) There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

3) Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

4) There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

6) We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

7) There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOSH !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

8) And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

9) We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! Wehad the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen.. Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

10) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

11) There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

12) And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1970 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 40 Crowd

Smile of the Day

Yesterday a friend blogged about The Power of Bright Spot Thinking and I think it is so important to be reminded of this once in awhile and to do our best to stay focused on the positive in our life. Sharing our "bright spots" of the day and our smiles of the day, the things that make us smile and help us to be focused and keep us on track... are just some of the things I want to share on my blog. I feel they are like love.. you can never love enough... it is something that the more you give the more you have.

My first Bright Spot and someone that always makes me smile is the above mentioned friend. I am not sure how we started sharing our blog posts, I know that in the several years of being a crafter and having an online store I have seen her here and there and always thought her stuff was so much fun. Her name is Jenny and her blog is Knees and Paws her shop is KneesandPaws on etsy and it is full of fun things to allow and encourage children ( and adults ) to use and enjoy their imagination which I believe helps us to grow.

I love reading her blog, she has an interesting life, she blogs about a lot of different things, homeschooling, her business, her community, her family and so much more. One of the best things about being friends with her is the support she gives. She takes the time to read my blog and leave comments, which I know is time consuming. I am thankful for every person who takes the time to read my blog.. I know a few people who do read it and don't leave comments here very often but take the time to comment to me elsewhere.. that is wonderful to. Even if you are not leaving comments anywhere or if all you do is scan through the post.. I am still thankful that you clicked on this page :) Leaving the comments/feedback on the post itself is nice as it keeps it all in one place and I can get an idea of what people enjoy reading about by the comments they leave or do not leave. Thank you Jenny for the feedback on my blog and for sharing your life with us on your blog.

My second bright spot that has had me smiling since it happened last night is from the artfire.com forums. Dave was working and I was online a bit later than most nights... and I was posting in a forum thread that was just for fun.. nothing serious.. but it wasn't working right for me... things that should have shown up on the right were showing up on the bottom.. not really a huge deal... but... annoying. I gave up and went elsewhere... then I saw an email in my artfire box. It was someone I had seen before in the forums and I had explored her shop but had never talked with her. She wrote me a very friendly note letting me know what my problem was and how I could fix it. One thing I was able to understand and fix right away but the other thing was causing me problems and when I tried to follow the directions I ended up making it worse. I knew I was tired and my eyes were not working right (dang getting older) so after a few emails back and forth she could tell I was getting frustrated and she was so patient and supportive that I took a deep breath and went back and tried it one more time... it worked! :) That in itself made me smile.. that someone who does not know me at all would take the time to not only offer help but to keep gently pushing me and believing in my ability to do it. She stayed with me until I got it. Then this morning I log in and go to the forums.. I see she has a thread about what she had been helping me with. I clicked on it and a few posts in I see my name... they are talking about me... a few of them... at first the panic button goes off.. I have seen other forums on other sites.. where people who are learning are cut to pieces... I took a deep breath and I kept reading... and my heart melted a little a bit.. no one was mean or hurtful or snide or anything but friendly and helpful and fun and it was one of those moments where you KNOW you are where you should be. Here is the thread it is these people that make artfire.com what it is.. a wonderful place to sell and a wonderful place to buy! You can check out their shop by clicking on their names.. or clicking on the items on the right hand side... they are all pretty wonderful... I would love to have you take a minute to explore AnitasPottery as she is the one who was so helpful to me and well.. her shop is awesome.. she makes very tiny little "Wheelthrown Pottery MINIATURES Ceramic Clay BUTTONS Tiny Clay TILES Unique Quirky ONE of a KIND" I love the tiny little teacup earrings I am amazed when people can do this type of work in regular sized items.. and these are so little.

Please take a minute to share my bright spots and smiles and give these people a moment of your time. You never know when it might be you or something you do that is someones bright spot or maybe their reason for smiling that day.

~Michelle

Titles ~ Todays Special ~ Smile of the Day

I know that the title of the blog post is so important.. it is what will pull people in.. and yet.. I struggle with that so much. Most of my blog posts are all mix and matched a bit of this and a bit of that and some of everything and sometimes nothing. So I tend to have very boring titles.. many times I have sat and stared at it and just not written anything because I can not come up with anything that even sounds interesting. I am wondering if I should do smaller posts that are more focused on one thing at a time.. or if I just need to get with it and be more creative.. or .. I have no clue.. would love any suggestions or ideas to try. Thank you!

Item of the day!!! Valentines Key Chain ~ frosted white sea glass and a heart charm ~ free shipping world wide today for this item!

I am going to start doing a few items of the day with either free shipping.. or a % off or something on a regular basis.. not daily... in fact might end up being an item of the week... not sure how it will work.. but I do not like to put the shop on sale.. or do those things since I never seem to get any orders when the shop is on sale.. and then a week later I get sales.. weird.

Today on a friends Facebook I saw something that touched me.. and reminded me... life is not about the money or the material things that we have and I wanted to share it. it is so easy to get caught up on the bills we have and the money we don't have but... in the long run.. money and having it or not really is not what is important... not that this helps any stress of having more bills than income.. but... it does remind me to keep things in perspective and it is my smile of the day.

There once was a rich man who was near death. He was very grieved because he had worked so hard for his money and he wanted to be able to take it with him to heaven. So he began to pray that he might be able to take some of his wealth with him.

An angel hears his plea and appears to him. "Sorry, but you can't take your wealth with you." The man implores the angel to speak to God to see if He might bend the rules. The man continues to pray that his wealth could follow him.

The angel reappears and informs the man that God has decided to allow him to take one suitcase with him. Overjoyed, the man gathers his largest suitcase and fills it with pure gold bars and places it beside his bed.

Soon afterward he dies and shows up at the Gates of Heaven to greet St. Peter. St. Peter seeing the suitcase says, "Hold on, you can't bring that in here!" But, the man explains to St. Peter that he has permission and asks him to verify his story with the Lord. Sure enough, St. Peter checks and comes back saying, "You're right. You are allowed one carry-on bag, but I'm supposed to check its contents before letting it through."

St. Peter opens the suitcase to inspect the worldly items that the man found too precious to leave behind and exclaims, "You brought pavement?"

Today was a beautiful day on the beach.. cold at 32 degrees.. but sunny and beautiful... that water was still like glass and you could hear people on the island across the water (well maybe not but it felt like it ) Compared to Monday when it was storming and the waves were muddy (video here ) The picture at the top is from today :)

~Michelle