The sunny side of life

There's an awful lot of negativity in my life right now; it's about time to focus a bit on what positives can be found.

- Yesterday, a coworker who was on vacation Thursday-Friday-Monday sent an e-mail out to all of us that she was married over the weekend. The sneaky-sneak. She and her long-time boyfriend tied the knot in a small courthouse ceremony, then went out for lunch with family. She is positively glowing, and it's not all coming from the sparkler on her ring finger. But still...sneaky sneak.

- A sure sign of fall, the geese are back. A small gaggle stood on one side of the road into the condo complex last night, giving the eye to anyone going past. One solitary goose was sitting, all cozied in, on the grass on the median. They may occasionally clog the road, and do often leave droppings in rather inconvenient places, but that honking sound is synonymous with autumn. (yes, even if it comes at six a.m.)

- Monday night/Tuesday morning I took out several loads of garbage. I'd missed the pickup the week before, so had four bags rather than the usual one or two. Additionally, it was recycle day.

The recycling bin is put out the morning of pick up or later the night before. I pick it back up and put it in its spot outside my basement door on the way home from work. Only last night, the empty bin wasn't sitting in the designated garbage pick up spot.

After the raffle prize experience, my first instinct was to condemn unknown persons for theft.

Oh ye of little faith. One of my neighbors must have picked up all the recycle bins and put them back in their places in the basement. What a sweetheart; seeing the bin sitting in its usual spot just made my day.

- There were four squad cars, a paddy wagon and a Milwaukee Police Department SUV parked in front of Starbucks this morning, with six officers standing in the parking lot drinking coffee. I had to laugh. There may have been other reasons they were there, but I prefer to believe they are protesting Starbucks recent "We aren't banning guns on the premises, but they are unwelcome" statement.

- After a discussion on my future plans for my hair, my stylist and I opted not to lighten the color all over (he'd have to bleach it first, and that would make the hair too fragile for the perm I'd like to get later). Still, we've been using a slightly lighter color on the roots each time they are done anyway, so it is changing, though very gradually. Sassy red highlights went in last night too.

- Heh. Who says men can't get highlights? A tattooed gentleman came into the hair place about the same time I did. He had a full, longish head of hair. It was kind of funny to share the experience with him of sitting around waiting for your color to develop. Part of the attraction of this salon is the incredible variety of people you will see.

- My car dealership is having a huge $XXXX for any trade event on their used car inventory. They had a sweet, 9400 mile, year old Mini Cooper Countryman in their inventory. I e-mailed for the price. The "sunny" part of this is that while they did send me the price, I received a second e-mail shortly thereafter saying it should not have been on the inventory, as it had already sold.

Whew - that was a close one. The only thing holding me back was the color (orange - I mean really, orange?).

- And the final positive, I've another eye of round roast sandwich for lunch. The meat is really much better on a sandwich than it was straight from the oven. I still have one more large chunk of it in the freezer, and will use it for shepherd's pie next week some time.