All in Holidays/National Days
I know that it’s politically incorrect these days to use the term “postman” but the title of this post is in reference to an oldie but goodie song by The Marvelettes, “Please Mr. Postman”. I find myself singing this song whenever I am coming down to the wire and need to get something mailed off immediately so that it arrives on time. This scenario happens often. Let’s just say - I keep postal workers busy all year round and I sing this song a lot!
It must have been during my junior year in college that I learned the importance of drinking water. I wish I could say it was because I was interested in physiology and studied how the body works but it was because someone told me that drinking a lot of water helped prevent hangovers. Also at that time, I was participating in beauty pageants so I received the vanity advice: water helps keep the weight off and the skin smooth and blemish-free.
Nationaldaycalendar.com has an application process in order for each national day to be approved. One of the many reasons why I love this site is that national days cannot be “bought”. Trust me, I tried. Lol. One requirement is that the day cannot contain a business name within the title. For instance, at first I wanted National Thoughtful Pinch Day but after the application was denied, I decided to reapply and ask for National Thoughtful Day. Another example is National Fried Rice Day which was submitted by Benihana who sponsors an annual event that features their delicious fried rice. I’m guessing that it could not be called National Benihana Day but National Fried Rice Day works just as well. I love that Nationaldaycalendar.com shared the following information about how National Flip Flop Day came to be:
As an underaged drinker in college, I quickly learned why my friend’s drink choice when we snuck into bars was a Long Island Iced Tea. Here are the ingredients for a Long Island Iced Tea: vodka, rum, gin, tequila, triple sec, sweet and sour mix, cola and a lemon slice. If all of the prices for well drinks were the same - why wouldn’t she get the most alcohol for her money? The rationale is simultaneously gross and brilliant. However, it begs the question - why do they call it Long Island Ice Tea when iced tea isn’t even an ingredient?
National Creativity Day has been celebrated on May 30th ever since 2018 and according to Nationaldaycalendar.com, Hal Croasmun and ScreenwritingU wanted this day to be recognized as a way to “celebrate the imaginative spirits everywhere and to encourage them to keep creating.” Maybe I’m not the only one, but I never knew this national day existed. Now that I know about it, I feel like more than ever, we should be embracing and celebrating creativity. Over the last few months our lives have been about creative work space and situations, creative parenting, creative remote learning, creative graduations. Where would we be during this COVID-19 era without creativity?
I get so much information about national days from nationaldaycalendar.com and I recently learned that even though National Nurses Day is celebrated on May 6th, nurses can be celebrated all week long. Yay! From 5/6-5/12 we all have the opportunity to celebrate National Nurses Week. In addition, there are many different types of national days dedicated for nurses so we can celebrate them practically all year long. And we should!
Raisins. You either you love them or hate them. What I find interesting is that there are people who love grapes and wine but can’t stand raisins. It’s similar to those who will pour a cup of ketchup onto their fries but will get sick to their stomach if they see a tomato on their burger. I get it. It’s all about the texture and the look of the food items. Let’s face it, the site of a raisin is not the most attractive and the texture is…well…squishy.
On Friday when I found out that our kids cannot physically go back to school for the remainder of the year, I thought, “It’s time to rebound.” I should clarify, that was not the first thought that came to mind. I did break down sobbing while driving home from picking up dinner that day. However, as I quietly ate dinner with my kids, I started to feel the “rebound” attitude rising up inside me. As one part of me grieved the loss of a school year, the other part of me wanted to take back some control over my life. I knew what I had to do. I decided to get the Earth Day thoughtful pinches ready for the teachers.
Years ago I wrote a post entitled, “Happy Easy-ter” and it was about me doing the very minimum to prepare for that upcoming Easter holiday. In other words, I took the “easy” way out. I had to LOL because if I even had the energy to do 1/4 of what I thought was the easy celebration back then, I would be so lucky. This year, I took a MAJOR short cut on the Easter preparations!
As a thoughtfulness curator, I help people collect their thoughts. Did you know that being thoughtful has everything to do with banana bread?
My goal this year is to be more compassionate when I’m with my kids and the hub. I need to be careful about what I ask for because I’m being put to the test left, right and 24/7. For instance, last week when my daughter yelled at me for not toasting a bagel for her - my compassion was no where to be found. In fact, I probably wouldn’t talk to my worst enemy the same way that I spoke to her. After I dropped her off at school, I screamed my head off. What a great way to start the day!
By the time I went to Oprah’s 2020 Vision event in St. Paul, I had been meditating for at least 5 minutes a day for 10 days in row because that is my 365 (366 for Leap Year) for 2020. I often heard that the benefits of mediation were immediate but I wasn’t expecting it to be truly… immediate. The Oprah event exceeded all of my expectations because: 1. I didn’t have any expectations except to see her live on stage and 2. meditating cleared up some junk just in time to see this show. My mind was so open that it soaked up every morsel of wisdom that Oprah had to offer.
