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!

Good fortune shies away from gloom. Keep your spirits up. Good things will come to you and you will come to good things. - Glorie Abelhas

It always makes me sad to see missing posters for family pets.  One of my biggest fears is that Forest or Gump could one day go missing, and so my heart always breaks whenever I see that another person or family is living my fear.  Recently there's been a ton of missing posters for a family dog named Buddy hanging around my town, and there's a sign on our mailbox right now for a missing black and white cat.  It just breaks my heart to think about those poor animals.

So, obviously it makes me happy to hear about a story where the family and their pet is reunited.  Today I read an article in the Toronto Star about a cat that was found after being missing for five years, 2 500 km away from its home.  Reading the article made my heart smile, and I hope that Buddy and the black and white cat are just as lucky.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1054908--cat-that-went-missing-5-years-ago-found-2-500-kilometres-away?bn=1

Laughter is an orgasm triggered by the intercourse of sense and nonsense. - Author Unknown

Today my heart smiled when a friend that I haven't spoken to in two years asked me to go onto Skype and chat, which resulted in lots of laughter!  It was such an unexpected surprise and a great chat.  I will be going to sleep with a smiling heart!

Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy. - Cynthia Nelms

I just have to say, I LOVE this quote.  This is the first time I've read it, but I think it's incredibly true and is how I try to live life sometimes.  In fact, I remember having a conversation with someone recently where I was trying to drill this into him.  But that story doesn't belong in this blog!

Today my heart smiled when I found out that my amazing cousin gave birth to her beautiful baby girl!  I know that her and her husband will be amazing parents to Olivia Grace, and I hope that she has a long lifetime of smiling heart moments.

Normally I wouldn't try to overshadow the news of the birth of a baby, but I have been preparing to update my blog with this picture for three days now, so I kind of have to do this (technically I could pretend that I didn't finish my project until tomorrow and update this then, but that would be lying).  For some strange reason on Thursday night I decided that I was going to crochet little Halloween ornaments, found a bunch of patterns, and went to work!  My heart smiled when I put the finishing touches on the last little guy and posed them all for a picture to share with you.

A thank you goes out to Lisa for letting me use her little deck garden.

Carry laughter with you wherever you go. - Hugh Sidey

I'm not a huge shopper, but when I do buy things, I buy lots of things!

Today my heart smiled when I went to not one store, but two stores I love and found out that they had sales!  So I now have lots of body lotions and lots of books (which I already had, but there was a sale on, so buying more is understandable).  For those curious folks out there, book wise, I bought Game of Thrones, Book of Negroes, Virgil and Beatrice, and East of Eden.  All books I've wanted to buy for a while, and all books I've been hearing good things about!  My heart will probably smile again when I crack their spines.