It’s Friday, the best day of the week!!! For old times’ sake, I promise to add a favorite thing of mine, for you to ponder purchasing, at the end of my post, but first, also for old times’ sake, I have a really cool No Horsepucky story that happened just last week:
My regular readers already know that we lost our big yellow Labrador retriever, Ralphie, during the holidays. He had an aggressive lymphoma, and was in a lot of pain, and so we had him euthanized in our home. This was understandably devastating for all of us in our family.
Now there is a field, by a church with some homes across the street, that we would take all three of our dogs to, on occasion. We would take them off of their leads and let them run their energy off, while they gleefully ran circles around us. We were always careful to make sure there that were no other dogs nor children around. Admittedly, there is a leash law in this town that holds this big, wide open field. And also admittedly, we were breaking the law when we did this. Last week, around dusk, we took our two remaining dogs, Josie, a tricolor rough collie, and Trip, a Boykin spaniel, (also known as “little brown dogs”) to this field and we let them off of their leads, in order to run around like mad and chase each other. Lo and behold, within minutes, out of nowhere, there appeared flashing red and blue lights. A young police officer came out of a police car, and so we immediately put the dogs back on their leashes.
The officer looked chagrined. “Guys, I’m sorry,” he said. “There is a regular, same, anonymous caller who probably retired too soon, who thinks that their new job is to enforce every ordinance in this town.” He sighed. “So, I am sure that they are watching me talk to you. I have to tell you that you can’t let your dogs off of their leashes.”
“Understood, officer,” I said respectfully. “We’ll keep our direwolves under control,” my husband muttered under his breath.
“It’s really weird, though,” the officer said, as he turned to get back into his patrol car. “The caller said that it was a big yellow lab running off lead.”
True story. No horsepucky.
Okay, and now here’s the promised favorite for this freezing Friday (even here in Florida – yikes!). I read an article in the WSJ before Christmas that this particular ice cream scoop is better than all others. Supposedly, the way that the scoop conducts heat from your hands, makes scooping ice cream particularly easy, smooth and simple. So, I stuffed my family’s stockings with them, and when my daughter opened hers she exclaimed that they were the exact same scoops that she had used when working at our local, beachy, well-known, famous-in-these-parts ice cream shop.
What is this marvelous, must have contraption? It’s the Zeroll, Size 20, Original Ice Cream Scoop, and you can order it from Amazon. Now, go buy your favorite ice cream so you can try it for yourself. Yum. (Some good things do come from freezing cold.)
Finally, here’s a great question that my husband (who played football his entire youth) posed to me recently when I was getting my panties in a knot over nothing really. He said to me, “Babe, what’s the long-game here?” It jolted me into perspective quickly. Most of our little aggravations with people and with situations, aren’t that big of a deal in the scheme of things. But relationships and events can be damaged and possibly even ruined if we let these little grievances get to us, and we react poorly. So when you find yourself in a frustrated state, take a pause and ask yourself, “What’s the long-game here?” I think that this question will come quite in handy, as our family has two weddings in the horizon. While we want these days to be incredibly special, we all know that things rarely go exactly as planned. The long-game in any wedding, is a special, warm celebration of two people’s love and commitment to one another. The long-game is supporting a happy, healthy union.
The next time that you are spiraling, take a beat, and ask yourself, “What is the long-game here?” And then decide whether your actions and choices are supporting the long-game in any endeavor or relationship that is important to you. And after careful consideration, if you are quite okay with the long-game being shortened or ended, by all means, have at it.
Have a great weekend, friends! Scoop some ice cream and play the long game.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.