Happy Halloween!

To all of you who have kiddos, pass out candy or are still kids at heart – have a safe and happy halloween celebration.  I know San Francisco is going super crazy with the black and orange since the SF Giants won the World Series.

SB Nation. Justin Sullivan

How lucky the celebration parade is happening on Halloween.  I mean even if you aren’t a fan you’d still be part of the crowd if you were celebrating Halloween by wearing your favorite black and orange outfit.  Like these beauties…

Skate on Jive Turkeys

Enjoy your festivities…have a piece of candy and simply offset by throwing in some squats, leg raises and our favorite PLANKS.  Those’ll help you stay fit and healthy as you start the holiday season.

See ya later!

Cathy

 

 

Weekend Update

For you loyal readers (THANKS MUCHOS)…here’s the weekend update.  As you read, right before this, I started my monologueing and wooshed right over my weekend.  I did a bit better on the photo logging, with the exception of Saturday.

Our nephew slept over Friday night and it was X-box’ing, a movie and then to bed for the 3 of them.  Then getting out of bed at 4am Saturday morning when I hear 2 sets of feet trying to creep around the house completely unaware that our creaky floor is practically saying “HEY YOU KIDS GET BACK TO BED BEFORE SHE WAKES UP!”.  Did they listen to that floor?  Heck no!  So who do you think had to get out of her warm bed to flick on the kitchen light and tell them “I see the top of your head poking out the side of the ottoman – get back in bed”.  Jeesh!  I don’t know what they thought they were going to do since they didn’t turn on any lights AND they went into the family room instead of the room where the X-box is.  Weirdos.

After waking up at a normal hour (630am, UGH) and finishing up my circuit workout, I whipped up a huge batch of scrambled eggs, turkey bacon (SMELLS SO GOOD) and hashbrowns for the 4 dudes in the house.  I whipped myself up a protein pancake topped with blueberries and ate the leftover 1/2 bacon from HunBun.  Since I’m such an awesome home-maker (insert snarky smirk here), I didn’t realize I had no milk until I went to pour some for the boys at breakfast.  Oh well…GATORADE for all!  🙂

They went back to the X-box while I did my favorite chore of all time – CLEANING BATHROOMS – Super Bleah!

About noon nephew’s mom and lil bro came over to pick him up…and spend some time hanging out in the backyard while HunBun did his most favorite chore of all time – CLEANED THE YARD.

That’s what she said…HA HA!

After the visitors left it was errand time.  Needed to get some groceries, pick up some (cheap) nice black dress pants, black dress shoes and a long sleeved button white shirt for 12yo and his upcoming Band performance (for 3rd graders no less) and some butt cushions for our wooden dining room seats (as HunBun has complained numerous times about his aching booty after sitting there when working from home).  So that meant a drive to the Fremont Hub to hit up Bed, Bath & Beyond, Target, Trader Joe’s and Safeway!  Love the convenience!

So our erranding was successful UNTIL I left 12yo & 10yo in the car while I went to grab the last few things from Safeway.  When I came back to the car guess what happened?  Give up?  (I about did too)  That darn car wouldn’t start up!!!  SUPER ARGH!  I calmly (I think it was calmly) asked the boys what they had running while I was in the store…radio, a/c, gps screen.  So I just pulled out my roadside assistance card, gave them a call and was told someone would be out to assist me in about 30 minutes.  After about 40 minutes the assister called me and said he’s been looking for us in the parking lot.  So I explained where we were (a lot more complex than it should have been) we spotted his white van…flagged him down (because apparently he still didn’t see us)…he popped the hood…pulled out his little jumping box…gave us a zap and we started right up.  WHEW!  We got on our way and both boys apologized for using the battery power while I was in the store (pretty sweet of them)..and I said “hey you couldn’t have known and we got to spend time together”.

You gotta cherish those little pieces of time while those boys are still young enough to want to hang out with their mom.  🙂

And that was just my Saturday!  Why do I think my life is so boring?  😀

Sunday started with a Meetup group run…except for the fact that there was no one else meeting up AND I dropped my dang Nano while waiting for apparently no one to show up!  You can barely see (but I can totally see) the spiderweb that is now in the top corner of my screen.  CURSES!  I was so irritated I just started running…but had to stop cause that dumb Nano lady started telling me what song I was listening to from what playlist.  Are you kidding me?  Didn’t I shut you off?  So I had to stop and go through every single setting to figure out why the heck she started blabbering at me again.  Finally after clicking through every – and I mean every – setting on that thing I finally clicked on “Male” then “Off” and she shut her yap.  I used all that annoying energy to haul patootie down the trail – throwing in some speed intervals with walking.  I got up to a 8min mile pace and ended at an 8:30min mile pace – pretty sweet – maybe I should tick myself off before every race? 🙂  I didn’t run very far – I think just 2.5 miles since I had stuff to do at home.

I’m reconsidering the drive out to my Meetup group Sunday runs.  It’s about a 30 min drive there and back…and not to be a complete cheap-o…with the gas prices where they are at (I filled up at $4.45 on Friday – and that was the cheapest station!) I may need to reconsider my plan.  I’ve got a perfectly good neighborhood to run around in on Sundays.  Maybe I’ll just do every other week or once a month at Campbell and the rest will be pounded out around home.  Decisions Decisions.

I did try out a new watch I got in support of Breast Cancer awareness.  Heartmonitors.com had a special announced on Active.com for a deal on one of their GPS watches.  Took me a little while to figure out but certainly a bit smaller than my Garmin plus it comes with a watch function so you can actually use it as a watch if you’re into the fitness look.  I thought you could track your steps with it but I’ll have to look up the detail on the interweb as they post the user manual there.

After I got home I felt like a superstar 1950’s housewife….not because I wore a dress and pearls around the house but because I was a baking fiend (and that’s what Barbara Billingsly would be doing for the Beaver)!  I picked up a mini-donut pan at BB&B on Friday and made some gluten free donuts for breakfast.  I put too much nutmeg because they tasted like gingerbread…and looked like dog turds (but that’s not because of the nutmeg – HA).  The “poo” appearance was because 10yo and I put too much mix in each of the little pan holes and they poofed up and over.  Hey every minute a lesson is learned…and ours that morning was not to overfill the mini-donut pan (or maybe it was follow the directions that said “do not fill more than 1/2 way”).

Soy MIsto and Homey Donuts

Before I left for my run I threw some chicken breasts and Stubb’s BBQ sauce into the ol crock pot and turned that whiz bang gadget on.  The entire house smelled DE-licious all day long.

10yo and 12yo came (were dragged) along with me to the Verizon store to activate 10yo’s replacement cell.  That kid is on his 4th phone already.  Keeps losing the dang things.  I laid the law down this time (I think) and said if he’s not talking on it, the phone is in his backpack pocket or on the charger at home.  We’ll see how far the law goes with that one.  I need to find a cheap replacement for 12yo’s phone that went swimming in the ocean when they were in Hawaii this summer.  I’m checking around before I break down and buy one from the store.  Cheese balls these kids!  Already expensive and all these bonus buys just add up!

To finish up the day, I whipped up some gluten free bisquick biscuits to go along with the BBQ chicken for dinner.  I didn’t have enough shortening so I threw in some Heart Balance spread to make up the difference.  So yummy…especially with the drizzle of honey I put all over my 2 biscuits.  Slurp-ur-rific!

Verizon store waste…Lunch Wrap…GF Biscuits

We had the World Series on and learned later that the Giants won (I don’t know what I was doing instead of watching – going through my stack of magazines maybe?)  Then learned that a bunch of dopes in the city decided to “celebrate” by burning stuff in the middle of the streets in the Mission.  Turds!

And now you’re caught up from my weekend.  Hope your’s was as adventurous!

See ya later!

Cathy

Move it…it’s Monday

**I started writing this whole spiel when I was supposed to be wrapping up my weekend…so instead you’ll read my Monday morning monologue…then get to read the “woah” inducing weekend wrapup after.  You know, just to keep it interesting.  🙂

Honestly I don’t know how daily bloggers do it.  They either lead super exciting jazzy lives or they find more delights in daily living than I give my life credit for.  I mean I guess I could give you a working gal’s play by play of how many conference calls I did…or if I decided to get dressed in something other than sweats and t-shirts and headed into the office…or if I wrote some document or some other super exciting wonky (or work’y) thing like that.

I could write about my Eats…but you’d probably end up saying “didn’t I just read that yesterday?” as I tend to repeat, repeat, repeat what I Eat.  Like the Apple Cider Vinegar drink I start my day with because I read it’s good for your metabolism, followed by a protein pancake (egg whites, protein powder, flax meal, cinnamon, smushed banana) topped with fruit of some sort, a honeycrisp apple (while in season) for snack, followed by sauted veggies (whatever is in the fridge) for lunch, another piece of fruit or a smoothie for the afternoon tide me over (if I remember before it’s time to cook dinner) and finally sauted veggies and a protein for dinner.  Whoo-whee!  I can hardly contain myself with the excitement about all that variety.

ALTHOUGH…I do find the veggie saute quite beautiful in the light of Instagrams Lo-Fi setting.  The colors that nature has blessed food with to not only attract us but to almost define how they will taste in our pieholes is actually one more great mystery to life.  SO TOO…do I find that I have demonstrated some level of creativity as I stare into the open pantry and open refridgerator as I figure out what I’m going to Eat for the requisite feeding time.

AND…I could give updates on my morning Sweats since I’m now including a bunch of body weight circuits into my 5am routines.  PLUS…focusing more on speed workouts to improve my time again for my next half-marathon in January 2013 that could be interesting to some of you out there.

SO…I guess I could write daily if I really put my mind to it.  I guess the questions are: 1. Can I dedicate the time to writing every day?  2.  Can I give myself a break and just write instead of feeling like what I did won’t make the “blog read” cut?  REALLY…it’s all in how I approach this and I meant for this whole blogging adventure to be FUN and a way for me to keep myself honest as I balance healthy living and living healthy with direction and magnitude.

OH.  So I guess that’s why I named my blog that.  🙂

Have a great Monday yourself.

See ya later!

Cathy

 

I must be healthy…I’m craving veggies!

Am I healthy now?

So I’ve been making a huge personal push to clean up my food intake – not just volume but quality and type.  I am normally a pretty clean eater.  I don’t eat a lot of red meat, although every now again HunBun and I will do the 2 for $20 deal at Applebees and get the 7oz. steak with veggies and baked potato  YU-UUM.  Add in the queso and chips?  Super YUM!

Oh, and if you have a Texas Roadhouse near you they have pretty good steaks there AND you can get loaded sweet potatos – it’s like Thanksgiving all year round!

We have a lot of chicken dishes, not too much fish (unless you count “packet” tuna/salmon) and the other seafood is shrimp that I usually cook up with basil pesto and pour over some gluten free pasta.

I used to eat a lot of salad, but then my taste buds turned on me and I couldn’t stand to eat raw spinach or raw kale.  I have to saute the greens or at the very least warm up the toppings so the greens are a bit wilted when I put them in my piehole.  I love veggies and try to add a new veggie every now and again…which is how I found my new fave brussel sprouts – but that’s a digression.

Back to my “I’m healthy now” proclamation.  So I guess I’m healthy…or healthier, right?  So as a testament to my healthiness here are some photos of the latest eats I’ve partaken of.  Just wipe the drool up before it hits your keyboard.  🙂

 

Snack

Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia Drink!

Avocado. Pure & Simple

That’s been my eating pattern for the last week or so.  I’ve been eating protein pancakes every morning – they fill me up until snack time rolls around (or if I’m caught up in marathon conference calls, then when lunch rolls around – BOOT!).  For lunch it’s been microwaved sweet potato and random veggies or egg white scrambles.  Snacks are usually honey crisp apples (SO GOOD) or cucumber slices and hummus.  I do love me some salty chips – so I toss a serving of Target’s Organic Corn Tortilla Chips on my plate too (15 chips for 150 calories – not too bad if I plan ahead).

In addition to the increase in veggies I’ve also upped my water intake to at least 80 oz a day (my handy pink water bottle has a little tracker for every time I fill it up I move it so I can see how much water I’m drinking – so smart, why didn’t I think of that?)  I’ve also grown to love coconut water – especially the chocolate flavored one.  As you can see from the photo above I did try Mamma Chia’s Cranberry Lemonade drink.  It’s like you’re drinking liquidy jello – once you get over that texture the drink itself is really tasty.

So I think I can label myself as “healthy”…I’m not an uber fanatic on my food intake.  I focus on good clean food for most of my meals but do enjoy sugary & salty delights whenever I want….just not everyday.

What’s your healthy eating approach? 

See ya later!

Cathy

 

 

 

 

 

Weekend Update

What up Ladies!

Saturday was “race” day…remember the air quotes around “running” on the last post?  Well they were extremely appropriate.  I would say I averaged 10 minutes of total run/jogging time on this trail.  The rest would be better labeled as a power hike through the rolling hills of Danville, California.

We parked far away from the park and caught the shuttle the lovely folks at Brazen Racing provided for us.  (No photo – fail)  It took about 10 minutes to ride up the windy road to the race location.  I sat next to a gal that was running the half-marathon; hope she did really well.  It was super misty and chilly up at the top and it wasn’t your typical crush of people, which was nice.

 

Waiting for race start

This little one was so cute!  He did the 5K and was like a jack rabbit…running then walking then running then walking.  The funniest was when he would pass people he’d smile at them and say “Boo!”.  I can say, with confidence since this was my second race with Brazen, you have the nicest people setting these races up and the sweetest people running these races.  Everyone’s super chill and you can just start talking to random folks and potentially find your new race pal (Hi Belinda and hubby!).

We were the last group, as the 5K’ers so we said we were going to run until the first set of hills…well that was probably 4 of the 10 run time minutes.  So you know what we were facing here’s a little photo montage (pardon the blurries, I was actually trying to race here 🙂  ).

On the trail…single file now

I’m running here!

Winding, winding, winding up up up

Like climbing Everest

New friend Belinda!

It’s all downhill from here!

The one thing we wanted was to not finish last…not to be jerks – but you know…we’re jerks.  HA!  Another thing was that we didn’t want the half-marathoners to finish before us either.  So as we are heading down the hill for the last 0.5 miles of our 5K who do we see huffing it up the hill????  Dang HF’ers!   Wholly Guacamole!!!!  We were like, whu?!?  These dudes were like zoned in – breathe was loud and their eyes were just blazing forward.  We were in awe…like these 2 guys

We made sure to run around the last corner before crossing the finish line and picked up this Flavor Flav ready race bling!

Bling Bling

Flames and everything, right?!?  So now that’s hanging up next to my tough Trail Hog medal from last month.  It’s like a zoo in here!  🙂

Then we erased all the calories we just burned by pigging out at the post-race buffet.  (Why did I not photo that again, Argh!)  Smeared PB on half a bagel, grabbed some pineapple slices, a little cup of pretzel M&Ms AND the awesome cappucino It’s It ice cream sandwich!   EEEEEEEEE!!!!  That thing is so good!

If you’re in the Bay Area totally do the Brazen Racing series of local races.  They are the best folks, both putting it on and participating in them.  I’ve got a couple more through the end of the year…next one’s a 10K.  Whee!

After the race LiLo and I headed to Downtown Danville for a street fair type of deal – food and crafter booths.  (Of course no photos…although it’s more because my phone was ready to die on me but also because I forgot, DER).  We stopped and ate a grilled chicken caesar wrap – so YUM.  It also must have looked so Yum because we had 2 folks stop and ask us where we bought ours from.

Oh, I did get one photo.  The kids were doing safe trick’or’treating at the fair and I saw this coolio kid…

I’m a Minecrafter

10yo totally wants to make a Minecraft costume this year so we’ve been saving boxes like mad fools (you don’t realize how hard these are to come by until you need them).  So when I saw this kiddo walking by I had to ask his parents if I could snap a photo (and make sure they knew I wasn’t some perv skeeving out on their boy) so 10yo and I could use as a template.  The mom said she bought both of the things on Amazon!  Man, the things we spend money on now a days!

So that’s my weekend…and now it’s the week – so we’ll see how today goes.  It’s starting off cold and rainy – so howdy do Fall!

See ya later!

Cathy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Race Bib Pickup – Brazen Rocky Ridge

LiLo and I are “running” the Brazen Rocky Ridge 5K this Saturday.  I say “running” because this is the hilliest place we have ever seen!  (We didn’t know what we were signing up for, that’s for sure.)

Being the two supersmart gals that we are, this morning we met at the race spot to get a ‘lay of the land’ only to find that they closed the trail we’ll actually be on to set up for Saturday.  To feel like we didn’t waste our time we hit the Elderberry trail instead.  OM-stinken-G!!!!  If this isn’t the most vertical race route ever created! (Apparently it’s not, I ‘oogled “most vertical race route” and it spat back at me Badwater Ultramarathon, which starts at 280′ and ends at 8500′; so I guess I should stop acting like a baby.)

Las Trampas Regional Wilderness Park

We were huffing & puffing AND trying to carry on a conversation – like all good gal pals should.  We did look around (to make sure we weren’t ambushed by a cougar or a crazy person (I did watch The Hills Have Eyes you know) and the views are absolutely GORGEOUS!  I’ll be sure to take photos while we are “running”.  Ha!

Here’s a video of 2010’s race so you can have an eyeball into what I’ll be doing on Saturday morning.

After our morning “hike”, we drove to downtown Danville’s Forward Motion Sports to pick up our race bibs and so I could check out a pair of Mizuno’s for my upcoming Half’s.  With our race entry we got 15% off any purchase at FM when we picked up our stuff so I figured I would try to take advantage of saving a little dough.  In addition to my sweet new kicks I also joined the cult of water belts.

MIzuno Wave Rider

Yes I drank the water…while I carry my own water… HA!

I know, I know…why’d I pick the most obnoxious looking one?  Well the others looked weirder AND didn’t sit right on my waistline.  But really, the real reason for buying into the water belt idea is an article I read recently (Runners World or Active.com or some other super smartsy place) where a tip to reduce your run time was NOT to stop at water stations.  DER!

I always have to slow down to drink my water/’ade otherwise I will literally drown myself while standing up right on dry ground. (I think that was a CSI episode).  I mean have you ever tried to guzzle a dixie cup full of liquid while jog/running?  Your nose holes will be clean as a whistle if you try.  So I can totally agree with the article’s opine that if you don’t stop your race time will decrease.  (insert head smack here).

I won’t be using the belt for this weekend, but I will be using it for the Tinkerbell Half in January and the Princess Half in February…in addition to practice runs with my meet up group.

Anyhoo…super cool swag again and really neat-o t-shirt.  Enjoy the pics…beam your “fast” thoughts my way around 830am pacific time.

That’s me!

There’s the Swag’ger baby!

See ya later!

Cathy

 

 

 

 

Wednesday, whaaat???

My favorite scene from one of my favorite movies sums up my bloggedy post…

I can’t believe it’s Wednesday already!  I feel like all I do now is dial in to conference calls, hang up, dial in to another call, hang up, repeat every day while sprinkling in email reading/writing.  No wonder I feel so adrift…my grounding was found by producing documents, materials, visuals…and now I’ve been so turned around with learning my new job, while keeping up with my old stuff, while making sure I spend time on my family and meeting my exercise and healthy eating goals.  No wonder I can’t tell what day of the week it is anymore.

Please don’t let it come to this!

My work space at home has shifted.  (You probably recognize this as the backdrop behind most of my lunch and snack photos – I am usually found dining al-desko quite a bit.  Sad but true)

That looks pretty organized

My filing system on display

See those dumbbells on the floor?  In order to bring some health back into my lifestyle I have taken to doing shoulder raises, standing core work and weighted squats while on conference calls.  I remember to put myself on mute so my heavy breathing doesn’t perv anyone out.  It’s working so far.  Yesterday I logged about 100 of each excercise during the course of my countless conference calls.  Woot woot!

So last week was a complete bomb in the healthy eating department, not to mention the mostly non-active lifestyle I adopted while in Oklahoma.  But this week I’ve been pretty good on the exercising front.  I went to yoga Monday night and Tuesday night, although I thought K’ten was going to kill me with all the “High Intensity” she threw in there.  I gave it my best and only took a child’s pose when the other alternative was to pass out.  🙂  I’ve also been bouncing (it’s all relative I know) out of bed when that alarm starts singing to me at 515am.  Good thing HunBun’s been going to the office early so I don’t feel too badly about waking him up – if he doesn’t have to get up I usually get a knee in the backside to get me out of bed quicker.

Eating’s been much better too.  Here’s a little montage of the last couple days of food…I wish I took a picture of dinner last night, it was super colorful and tasty.  Flick through flip book style…

Chicken Salad veggie pocket #2

Chicken Salad pocket #3 split its backside

Protein pancake with blueberries

Coconut Mango smoothie

Lo-cal version of a Pumpkin Spice Latte

Snack time

Overall doing much better than last week…for which I give myself a pat on the head (my arms are a little sore to reach for my back).

Now that you’re all caught up on my super jazzy life I’m sure you’re motivated to go do stuff too.

Anyway – back to work now that lunch break is over.

See ya later!

Cathy

Move it…it’s Monday

This post is really for me…telling myself to move it.  I’ve been MIA on the bloggedy front and really it’s because I’ve changed jobs and that turned my whole schedule completely on its head which meant I lost my head.

In addition to getting a whole new squad in a whole new area of the business that I do not know; I still have all of my previous work.  So needless to say I am running a little bit looney.

With the switch I am having to load balance prior work with new work so, like always, the easiest person to ask to “give a little” is yourself.  Which means I haven’t been to yoga in 3 weeks…failed on the last 2 weeks of my training plan…ate sorta OK and worked way too haphazardly.

I had to travel to Oklahoma, Monday through Thursday of last week to support a previously scheduled meeting.  Oklahoma was fine…that trip always requires a plane switch so I did the Denver route there and back.  Eating while in OKC was completely not healthy.  I had big old portions, not as many fruits and veggies as I should have, full size candy bars during the meeting and totally did not use MyFitnessPal to track my food/exercise.  BLEAH!  I did drink a TON of water…but we only had those mini bottles in the cooler so I felt like a hog grabbing one every 30 minutes.  Good thing everyone else supplemented their water intake with Dr. Pepper‘s, Cokes, Sprites, and all other bubbly drinks.

One of my dinners in OKC

 

Exercise went the way of my food choices – completely unmindful.  I had the best intentions because I’ve been doing a good job about waking up early and then hitting my body weight circuits.  I packed 3 exercise outfits for each of the days and figured out what I’d do if the hotel gym didn’t have enough treadmills for users.  How much exercise did I do while in OKC – ABSOLUTELY ZERO!  You could have found me sitting in my bed eating pilfered full size candy bars from the meeting or eating dried fruit (while somewhat healthy, not in the volume I was consuming) or eating the chocolate chip cookies provided in the hotel lobby.  SUPER BLEAH!!!

The weirdest part was I didn’t even have any emotions to this super fail and I think it’s because I’m the only one who is impacted by the fail.  No one else sees or feels the impact of my poor eating and exercising choices except me.  When I came home I just told HunBun this week sucked and I was getting back on my plan (which I did).  I didn’t even realize the “non-event” last week was until I wrote this down.  I guess in the past I have over emphasized things to the point where I have a ridiculous response to something like this.  I mean I am disappointed that I didn’t stick to my plan like I normally do when on work trips…but its almost like I realized that even with a 1 week fail I hadn’t ruined anything.  It can be fixed.  I can get back on my plan.  I can start by waking up early and getting my booty moving and feeding my body what I should be.

So that’s what I did.  After getting home at 845pm Thursday night I got myself out of bed at 5am Friday morning and hopped on the treadmill.  Then I focused on eating whole foods – no processed foods – with a focus on tons of veggies and protein.

Breakfast: Egg White Veggie Scramble

Big ol’ salad with smoked salmon

Veggie pocket with Chicken Salad

So not to say “problem solved”…more like “problem mitigated”.  I did really well Friday and Saturday…then ate some veggie chips on Sunday from Sunflower/Sprouts….followed by a small handful of chocolate covered almonds/cranberries with 2 slices of Supreme pizza from Safeway (what are you gonna do when you can get a family size pizza for $7.99!).  Hahahaha!

Sorry so wordy…with very little pictures.  But I just wanted you to know where I was….how I’ve been…and how I will be.  🙂

So if you ever feel like you failed, look at it without any filters and move on.  Life’s too short to waste on woulda-coulda-shoulda‘s.

See ya later

Cathy

**By the way, I should be back on track for posting on this bloggedy blog although I am making some changes.  Getting a little more focus going on..learning as I go Peeps, learning as I go.    🙂

 

Puzzle mania

World Smile Day takes over Freedom Friday

World Smile Day

Did you know today is World Smile Day?  Did you even know that we had a World Smile Day?  In the era of special days for practically every day of the year (can you image what that calendar would look like…maybe I should make it and become a millionaire!)  Back to the story…

You see that cute bright yellow smiley face?  Well Harvey Ball created the smiley face back in 1963 and it has become an international symbol of good will and cheer.  That smiley face has been used all over the place, I would venture to guess that the little yellow of sunshine was the catalyst for what we use all the time – the emoticon.  So after a while Harvey got concerned because his smiley face started showing up on all kinds of things and became a commodity.  Wanting to bring back the original meaning of the smiley face, Harvey came up with World Smile Day in 1999 (are you all singing that Prince song?  🙂  that sure popped into my head).

So take time today to smile…randomly…at everyone…for any reason.

Smile ya later!

Cathy