Of salamanders, fliers and peanut butter cookies ...

[Yenna]

I have no idea what day it is in my challenge ... but then again, I have no idea what day it is on the calender, so I am not too worried!

Had a wonderful weekend this weekend. The salamander I found on our last landscaping job was well received by my husband's kids and even his ex. We are now returning it to its woodland home and back to freedom! I think it will be appreciative (Julia, Rick's oldest daughter, named it Oblivious because that's what it pretty much was). But it greatly impacted, in a positive way, the kids' responses to me and they warmed up to me significantly! Also, when Rick was visiting with his kids Sunday morning (at his ex's place ... we don't have a vehicle to transport 4 children) I stopped by for a while and baked cookies with the girls. It was great fun and the kids were thrilled. It is the easiest cookie recipe min the world (and the best peanut butter cookie recipe, too!) that is was all fun to let the girls make them. I also taught them how to make the cross-hatch marks on the top, and they were pros at it!

I made real inroads with Rick's ex yesteday when I gave her a beautiful blouse I've been keeping for years but that I not longer fit. I don't know why I kept it, but it fit her beautifully and she absolutely loved it! She reciprocated by giving me a bottle of French Tip nail polish. The funnyt thing is, I almost bought me some of this polish but something told me not to, and I listened! As for Rick's ex it is so important to me that there is peace between us, for everyone's sake. Also, my mother-in-law gave me a brand new bottle of polish that I have been covetting for ages! It's amazing just how small things like that can make such a big impact!

My husband and I were planning on heading to a worksite today (we hadn't committed to it- we have some freedom of movement and timeline in that area) but neither of us felt right about it. Instead, he sat down to create the business flier and it became obvious that he was not enjoying himself at all! So I pushed him out of the way and created it in about half an hour and he loved it! We've printed and folded about 100 of them off, and it was done faster and more easily than he ever does it. That seems to be how it works for us time and again! We have a list of tasks and inevitably what one of us hates doing the other has no problem with. Previously Rick had always run his business alone, but he is finding it is so much easier and enjoyable with two. In fact, we had the flier done just after breakfast and we both feel excited about the day!

Btw, I was finally able to figure out how to create a photographic presentation on my computer not using Power Point and from now on I am going to be doing my vision boards this way. I have done one and it took so much less time than a physical vision board, and it was way more gratifying!