Oh Happy Tuesday! It’s a new week! A fresh start! I know I always say that on Monday’s but I feel like we all need to hear it even on a Tuesday. Today is a holiday for me at my job. But I chose to work 4 hours this morning and save those 4 hours for another day. Thank God I work for a company that allows us to do that if we want to. My sweetie is off today to but he sleeps in. I get up at the crack of dawn to fix breakfast for my son and pack his lunch. Yes, I know he’s a grown man. But, he’s all I have and as long as he lives at home, I’m happy to do it. Hang on to those babies as long as you can because you wake up one morning and they are 23. It goes so fast. You’ll look back and wish you had spent so much more time for them. I was fortunate to stay at home with my son until he was 2. I went back to work and left him in the loving, caring home of my parents. I often say that they raised him. My precious momma was a “hairdresser” as they called it and had a beauty shop in their home. We grew up in that shop and those little women because our honorary grandma’s. Daddy retired very young and he was there to help with the childcare. However, momma closed her shop about a week after I went back to work. She said it was time and all she wanted to do was care for my son. I was one of very few lucky women who didn’t have to leave their child at daycare. For the record, daycare isn’t bad, It’s wonderful. In fact my son went part time before he turned 3 because he needed the interaction with other children. He was literally born old as we often say. And to this day he still is just like my daddy. I don’t ever think its bad for mothers to work outside of the home. Honestly, who could afford to be able to stay home with their babies full time in this economy that we have. If you are someone who is a stay at home mom/dad, congratulations. Thats wonderful. We needed the extra income.
Which brings me to our little tale. Have you ever bought a lottery ticket? Law, I have. With homes and dreams of all the good things. Our lottery here in our state goes to help with college scholarships and I think that’s great. I know that the likelihood of ever winning millions is slim and I don’t spend much. Maybe $10 a month. So I figure if its in my cards to win maybe one day I will lol. As my little papaw used to say “you cant win if you don’t play”. Thats good enough for me. My husband and I like to think about what we’d do if we ever won big. Sure we are super blessed with what we have. We aren’t materialistic folks. We don’t drive new cars. They are paid for. Our home was built in the 70s and it’s not a mansion but it’s perfectly fine for our day to days. It will be paid for in a few years as well. I’m not a big shopper so I buy my clothes on the sale rack or on line for cheap. I like yard sales and thrift shops. I’m a retro gal so the best shopping experience for me is in an antique store or going to an estate sale. Give me an antique store any old day over a coach store or a bid department store. I’m also perfectly happy to look around in those shops and leave with nothing. It the experience for me not the “stuff”. Pretty much everything for me is that way. I want to experience it, not bring it home. If you like all of those expensive brands then yay. Thats what makes you happy and every person is entitled to that. You can’t take money with you when you leave this great world so do with it as you wish.
I think if I won the lottery it would be hard for folks to tell. I wouldn’t sale my house and buy a big mansion. I would buy fancy cars or a big boat. I would still dress the same as I do today. No fancy name brand clothing, purses, shoes, jewelry. Honestly I love my house. The lot that it sits on is large as we live in the country rather than in town. I have plenty of room for all that I need. Besides, the bigger the house, the more cleaning there is to do. The changes that I would make would be inside like a big soaking bathtub (I dream of one) and a new bigger kitchen. I would also take the wall down from the dining room to the living room to have more of an open floor plan. But, that’s it. No big spending there. As far as vehicles I really like my little car. It’s good on gas and it gets me where I need to go. I don’t go a lot as I work from home and pretty much just make a trip to the grocery store or to see my little momma. If I splurged for anything as far as a vehicle, I would buy a 68-75 model El Camino. Yes, that’s my dream car so don’t laugh. I LOVE IT! I’d get the biggest, fuzziest steering wheel I could find and pink fur dice and I’d drive that hog all over town. it would stay shiny and pretty and we would probably attend me car shows. I’m sure that’s something you would have never pictured about me but, that’s the truth of the matter.
We love Hilton Head Island. It’s our home away from home. We visit twice per year and we have made so many wonderful friends there. I’m sure if money were no object we would purchase a condo there. Nothing to extravagant just a place where we could go stay several months of the year and in our off time we’d let friends and family stay with no worry of having to pay.
Besides a few little delicacies, there would be signs that most folks wouldn’t think about. We live on this lovely little street that is just one little loop. There is a wonderful older man that loves at the end of our hill. Every spring and summer I watch him till the adjacent lot to his home and plant the most beautiful vegetable garden. He works tirelessly early in the mornings and late in the evenings so that he can stay out of the heat. He mounds the soil up and covers it all in hay in the spring. Those beautiful plants peek through and grow tall and full of veggies. I’ve never seen tomatoes so plump and solid. Now, I grow tomatoes but mine tend to get about as big as a small orange then I have to pull them before they rot. Obviously, I’m not doing it correctly. I’ve tried and tried. Although the tomatoes that I get from my plants are good, they aren’t anything to write home about. I do pretty well with radishes ( I absolutely love radishes), but the rest, well, not so much. If I won the lottery I would hire my precious little neighbor to come down here and help me every day to become the gardener that he is. Truth be told, he would probably do it now and for free, I just haven’t gotten the nerve to ask him. He is truly my garden crush lol. Forget movie stars. Give me this ole fella that can garden like he is feeding 500 people. Last year I found myself in tears just watching him tend to his garden. It just reminded me of my daddy. He was also an amazing gardener. We had a huge on at our house as well as the farm he had in another town. Off topic but, if you can learn this trades from you parents, someone older, or anyone for that matter, do it while you can. I only wish my daddy were here for me to pick his brain.
Chickens, my yard would have a huge chicken coup. I love fresh eggs. I’m lucky that I have family and friends that have sweet chickens and the eggs are usually plentiful. Theres nothing like a scrambled egg made with fresh, cage free eggs that haven’t been sitting on a grocery shelf.
Isn’t it fun to dream? We are completely allowed to do that. Aren’t we lucky that we live free where we are allowed to dream, to set goals, and to have the ability to work towards them. Every day I thank God for that. What would you do if you won the lottery? How would you change? Are you as blessed as me in the small simple things that all of that money wouldn’t make a ton of difference? Would you buy the finer things or would you live life similar to the way that you do now? I hope today is full of dreams and blessings for each of you. Have a blessed week!
P.S. My journey to a healthier/better me. For those that are following along here’s the update. The last two days I have stayed right on target with eating meats, veggies, and berries. I did have one chocolate kiss last evening because I felt a little shaky. It helped. I’ve been able to drink a little over 2 liters of water each day with fresh squeezed lemon. Its very cold here so my exercise has been inside moving around cleaning this house. This morning I weighed in at 185.6. Which means I’m down 2.1 pounds since Sunday morning. A lot was inflammation from my big Valentines meal on Saturday so that’s normal for me to loose that in a couple of days. It will plateau in a few days. Today is my 3rd day on plan so I know I’ll be very hungry. I always am every 3rd day. Willpower is the word of the day. I’ll update with my next blog post.
Always…….Brooke
Uplifting, Encouraging, and Fun blogging. 