It takes seventeen muscles to smile and forty-three to frown. - Author Unknown

Today is Halloween!

My heart smiled seeing all of the kids dressed up in their costumes, and then my heart really smiled when all of the trick-or-treaters were super polite!  I love it!  Now I can't wait to go out and buy Halloween chocolate on sale tomorrow.

Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open. - John Barrymore

I don't have a lot of patience.  If something looks like it's going to take a really long time, I have to do it in stages.  So while it might take a month to finish, it ends up taking me years to finish.  Case in point, the blanket I've been crocheting for about two years now.  It's been a bit of a pain.  I made some mistakes that are rather obvious, the reason why I started it no longer existed, it's hot to make (the blanket has to lie on top of you while you're crocheting it, making it really uncomfortable to do in warm weather), and it just takes a lot of time and patience.

But, my heart smiled when I finished it twenty minutes ago!  And it's just in time for the cold weather.  Also, Forest loves it, which is probably the most important thing.

This is the blanket all nicely finished!  It's the perfect length for cuddling up into.

This is me pushing Gump off of my blanket because he started to try and dig it up (it's how he makes himself comfortable, but I don't want him to rip up the blanket the first day I finished it).

A laugh is a smile that bursts. - Mary H. Waldrip

I felt absolutely horrible last night.  I couldn't look at the television, couldn't look at my computer, and any light just made it unbearable.  My sinus' started feeling a bit clogged.  I set my alarm, crawled into bed, and had an awful sleep.

Alarm went off in the morning, I looked at the time, and realized I meant to set the clock an hour earlier.  Which meant I had a total of 15 minutes to get out of the house and catch my bus.  I rushed around like crazy, ran to the bus, and thought that I had made it in time because there was a bunch of people standing around.  Five minutes later the bus shows up, and it's a high school special.  I missed my bus.  So I quickly called my mom at work to see if she had any money in the house that I could borrow for a taxi.  Found out all she has is some spare change.  Called and woke up my sister, who told me she had none.  Started walking home from the bus stop thinking that I was screwed, when my sister called me back up and told me to stay at the stop, take the bus to the GoTrain station, take money out of the ATM there and taxi to work from there because it'll cost less.  I followed her advice, the bus came about ten minutes later, and, to my surprise, made it to the GoTrain station early so that I was still able to make my connection bus to work!

So, while my day started off with everything going wrong, it made my heart smile when I realized that it was all going to work out in the end anyway.

Your attitude will always determine your attitude. - a sign posted in the girl's washroom at work

Something that always makes my heart smile is when my work and/or work ethic gets recognition.  I'm the type of person that puts everything into my work, regardless of how small the task is, and sometimes it gets tiring and I feel unappreciated.  Of course, when I feel unappreciated for a long time, I start to just not care anymore about what I'm doing.  

Well, today was a bit of a tiring day at work.  I'm not sure if it was the weather or what, but customers were just in bad moods.  One customer was looking through a rack of girl's shirts, and I asked if I could look for the size for her, and she said, "I'm just browsing.  I don't know what size."  It was obvious that this was a lie (I really don't see the point in looking through a rack of all the same shirt, unless you're looking for a specific size), but whatever, I walked away.  A couple more customers were weird and flat out rude, and work was just not looking fun.

I was asked to stick around for a bit after the time that my shift was supposed to be over to finish off my training.  I agreed, though a little grudgingly since I wasn't enjoying my day and couldn't wait to get home and read (I'm almost done a really good book!).  In the end, I'm glad I stuck around.

It was nice to be told that I'm doing a really good job and that it's obvious I'm working hard to the managers in the store.  After a day like today, I needed something like that to stop myself from just not caring.

So my heart smiled when I realized that I am appreciated at work, even if it doesn't always seem that way.

The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it. - C.C. Scott

You won't imagine the type of things you'll see when working retail.  Yesterday at work there was a surprise visitor for all of us working.  It was Santa Claus!  Well, a three year old boy who was dressed as Santa and walking around saying, "I'm Santa.  I'm Santa."  It made my heart smile to think how confident and comfortable he was pretending to be Santa.  I only wish that confidence stuck with all of us through life.

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. - Winston Churchill

I woke up today, and the first thing I thought was, "It's going to be a good day."  I always try to wake up in the morning and think something positive, but it's not always easy (like when the alarm clock goes off, it's still dark outside, and it feels way too cold to climb out of the sheets).  But when I realized that that was the first thing I thought, it made my heart smile.  How can you have a bad day when you start it off like that?

You're never fully dressed without a smile. - Martin Charnin

My day was definitely not what I would call the most exciting.  I was working today as a poll clerk for the Provincial Election, and let's just say, it's a pretty boring job.  It required sitting in a school gym, without any windows, from 8am to 10pm, with no breaks.  And most of that time, I was doing nothing.  Without all that being said, my heart smiled at the end of the day when all the ballots at my poll balanced out on the first count.  Less counting means less time spent in the gym!