Earlier this week, my friend Melly wrote a heartfelt post telling about how her mother would read daily affirmations to the family each morning to start their day on a positive note. Growing up on the opposite side of the world from Melly, my mother instilled in us that we should never go to bed angry and should say our prayers before we went to sleep. Not being regular churchgoers, and also not really fully understanding what I was supposed to say during said prayers, I asked my mother for guidance. She told me I could say whatever I wanted, but that I should also give thanks for everything that I was grateful for. So began my nightly ritual of giving thanks for my parents, the fact that my mom made me food and cleaned my room, that my dad bought me clothes and took me to Disney almost every year, and that once year I got presents and cake all on the same day… etc.
Over the years, this practice has stuck with me and fortunately evolved. I now give thanks for when Brian makes my food, and cleans my house…totally kidding (not really).
Twenty some years later, I still like to end my day on a positive note and despise going to bed (or leaving a conversation) angry. At night, I recap the highlights of my day like ESPN Sports Center – blessings edition (helloooo male sports fans cohort, and welcome to SSBlog). On Fridays, I do the same for the week. This week, I had an incredibly blessed week full of lots of smiles! Some of my favorite included:
1) Surprise dinner date to BOMA to start the week! Yay for African cuisine and Disney all in one!
2) Surprised co-worker with an engagement themed cupcake ambush to celebrate her recent big day! Yay for Betty Crocker cupcakes that are super amazing and Stephanie’s creativity to put them together into something kind of nice looking!
3) Super fun goodies I won from Defining Wonderland’s blog giveaway arrived. Creative books, notepads and more make my day! All because I got to answer one of the best questions ever, “share something that you have learned from a child or children.” More to come on this in a future post…
4) Matthew’s “thank you” card arrives addressed to Stephanie & Brian Konar. A) It is addressed in his handwriting to us, and my mother’s handwriting for the actual address portion…(and he just had his 18th birthday). B) I have succeeded at having the man take the woman’s last name instead of vice versa. My life will be complete when Brian’s family pays me his dowry, in goats…
5) I booked my trip to go see Baby Henry for late Thanksgiving/early Christmas! Let’s just call it a Thankmas trip. Henry will be turning eight months old when I see him, and I last visited him at two months old. I cannot wait to see how much my baby nephew has grown!
And now it is my turn to pay it forward to you and announce our winners of SSBlog’s giveaway on Monday for Malena’s Gourmet Creations.
Drum roll please…
Minnie is very excited to see who wins…
Minnie has decided she is picking the winners herself…
Who sent my dog bones to bribe her?
Ok, Minnie has selected two winners (please excuse the slobber and bite marks in your winning Hello Kitty paper pieces…). If you would like to file a complaint about the results, please take your matter up with Moo (I suggest you send her bones in advance next time).
Congratulations to Jessica and Your Beauty Junkie, you are the lucky winners! Please email me at [email protected] with your addresses and I will ship your prizes out! Malena and I hope you enjoy the goodies and are excited to hear your thoughts on her handmade products!
Thank you to all subscribers who entered the giveaway. We will be hosting another shortly, so stay tuned.
Those were the highlights of my week- what were some of yours?
Happy Friday,
Stephanie (and Minnie, the official giveaway drawing beagle).
