Just for all y’all’s future education, the difference between Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day is that on the former, we honor those who have died while serving their country, the latter is for those who have served their country and are still alive.

Does the president know that?

(you probably don’t want to watch the whole thing. It’s right at the beginning)

But seriously, Happy Memorial Day… Or something. It’s probably not a generally happy holiday, but I don’t know how else to say it. =]

(And I threw this one in for fun.)

There is absolutely nothing better than knowing someone is as excited about you as you are about them. Nothing.

I’ve completely forgotten about my things to smile about!  I went all the way back to my last one and found out that I last listed #16 way back in “Maximum Capacity For Awesome.”

So. To make up for the ones I’ve lost, here I go….

Reason to smile #17:  Knowing the coolest people in the world.

#18: Having a rockin’ room I love.

#19: Flirting

#20: Chapstick.

#21: Doing something you love.

#22: Witty conversations.

#23: Books.  They just make me happy.

#24: Knowing some one who pretty much always wants to see you smile.

#25: Creating something.

#26: Snow days!

#27: Having no home work.

#28: Dear and the Headlights

#29: Owl City

#30: When some one asks “How are you?” and really wants to know the truth. 

#31: Spending time with Deanna.

#32: College acceptance letters!

#33: Having awesome legos- such as a pirate skeleton, a borg, a cowboy + rifles, two armed Indians, a pirate with a feather in his hat and a parrot, a greaser with a red bandana, a leather jacket, and a knife, and a nice man with a gas mask – standing in a line on your desk shelf.

#34: Not having any clue to what wear, but ending up finding a really cute outfit in your closet.

So SMILE.  =]

In English, we just finished reading Beloved by Toni Morrison (phenominal book). In it, there is a stream-of-consciousness section.  Every week, we have to do two journal entries: One assigned, one that we choose. Today, we wrote our own streams-of-consciousness for our assigned journal entry. 

After I got through the initial I’m-writing-with-a-blue-green-pen-because-my-purple-one-won’t-work-right thoughts, I ended up on one core idea. Because it’s in stream-of-consciousness, the grammar and punctuation are not correct.  That’s how it’s supposed to be. Here’s that part of my writing – right off the paper:

I love people. The hardest thing about people is when you have to hurt them. How do you comprimise your not wanting to hurt them with your I need to hurt them? How do you take not hurting them and the amuont you need to and take the average? When you have to tell some one something but it hurts or when you have to do something but it hurts. How has the human race lived through life? I mean, how have people not just decided to stop living? and i don’t mean suicide, I’d never, ever do that. I mean going numb or deciding other people are too much to deal with? Do things end up worth everything it takes, eventually? Everything is so much easier in theory. You say oh, I’d do this in situation X, but wwhen situation x actually happens, it starts looking and feeling like the quadratic equation. Is there a math problem that you can use to figure out what to do? Plug in the result you want for Y, plug in who your action and decision will effect for X and Z, plug in the outcome you absolutely DO NOT want as Q, plug your heart into the equation and solve it. Or would that mathmatic equation take the worth and purpose out of life? Take the trial and error and learning out of life? If we had a math problem to make our choices for us, would we stop thinking? stop feeling? stop valuing other people and start viewing them as mere variables?