Random Thoughts for the week of August 23

I’m going to try a new feature this week, which I’ll probably share a couple of times a month: random thoughts. I stole this idea from my husband who sometimes does this for his weekly column in the newspaper. His random thoughts are shorter than mine because, well, I just ramble too much (hence the blog title: Boondock Ramblings.).

— I found this gem from the journal app on my phone. It was from last year so Little Miss swould have been almost 5. To set the scene, I was making my grocery list for that week.

Me: “Oh. I forgot to add veggies to my list.”

Little Miss: “Oh no, I know I get those when I wear too tight pants.”

Me: “What? Oh. No, honey. I said I forgot the veggies.”

Her: “Oh… well, now I gave away one of my secrets.”

— Most of the people who wait on me at our local dollar store are less than friendly. They were less than friendly before masks but now I can’t tell if they are smiling (doubt it) or scowling at me (pretty sure).

I try to joke with them, be friendly, but they just keep sliding my purchases into bags and acting like I’m not even talking. Most of the people at the stores in our town are pretty friendly so their behavior is unusual for me. it was the norm where we used to live.

I have often heard of people in more urban areas always being miserable (not the lovely folks who read my blog of course) and I can now see why.

I mean, who would be cheerful if everywhere you go people are grumpy? Except, we can choose to be cheerful even if people are grumpy to us and I did. I told the woman ‘thank you! Have a good day!” and I sang a familiar worship song on the way to my van. No use letting her dampen my spirits.

—- The other day I was watching a movie and Little Miss was in the room. A character uttered a bad word. I hadn’t been expecting it and told Little Miss: “Never repeat that word.”

“That word?” she asked. “Oh. That’s the word you said the other day.”

Ouch.

Must have been a stressful moment because I don’t remember saying it, incidentally. It’s not in my usual repertoire.

— I love having kids who are so unspoiled that they are excited when I bring socks home from the store. “Socks!” Little Miss declared Friday reaching into a Dollar General bag. “Oh, thank you!”

She then proceeded to try each one on, deciding if the peach colored ones were softer than the blue or purple ones.

“Oh my. These feel so soft on the hard floor. Not so much on the carpet, but on the hard floor they make my feet feel soooo soft.”

Eventually she put all five on at once and said they were even more amazing when worn all together. Who knew buying socks would be so exciting for her?

— Our town is so small that just about everyone I bump into has lived in our house at one time or another. Okay, so only two people I have run into so far. One is the secretary at the borough (town for people outside of PA) office and the other is our neighbor.

I have a feeling I will bump into quite a few more, though, because eight children grew up in this house at one time. Looking at the three bedrooms upstairs I couldn’t figure out how so I asked the lady at the borough office. Apparently there were four bunk beds for four boys in my daughter’s room and her room is the smallest in the house. I really can’t picture four bunk beds in there.

The girls were in my son’s room and the parents were my husband and my room. And back then they only had one bathroom. I contemplated this whole idea of a family of 10 in this house when we first moved in and mentioned it to an older neighbor who bluntly informed me “Well they didn’t have all the s*** we have now.” So, there you go then. That was blunt.

— Kittens are super warm.

— Dogs are also warm.

— Warm pets aren’t the best thing in hot weather, especially curled up on your chest.

— Josh Turner has a new album of covers. That’s exciting for country music fans

— Going off social media does wonders for your brain and your energy. Eliminating news adds even more happiness to one’s life

So there are some random thoughts for this week. What are your random thoughts? Let me know in the comments section.