Cutler’s is a sandwich shop in Centerville, Utah that I like to visit whenever I am there. They have great sandwiches, soup and best of all cookies. They make several different kinds but I am partial to their sugar cookies. I found a recipe for them from a woman who lives there and attended a class the owner taught. I was really hopeful that they would be the same. Sadly, they were not. BUT… they really are good sugar cookies. I frosted and decorated and delivered some to Kristina (who also loves Cutler’s sugar cookies) and took some to Family Home Evening last night. They were a hit. I love sharing my baking!
Category: The Birthday Project (Page 1 of 4)
The Kingwood Post Office can be very aggravating if you allow it to be. Today I was mailing a box to The Netherlands and a package to South Africa a very aggravating process if you are in line behind me. When I walked in there were 5 people in line and only one clerk working, very normal except for the short line. I grabbed my forms and got in line. I began to fill out my forms while waiting in line just like the man in front of me was doing. It was obvious we were in line. The woman that came in after me was aggravated from the time she walked in and immediately asked if I was really in line. I told her yes and continued to fill out my forms. She frequently sighed and tapped her letters on the counter. She tapped her foot and I could just feel her growing more upset by the minute. The line was moving really slow. When it was finally my turn I turned around and offered to let her go ahead of me. At first she refused, but after insistence on my part she did. I hope her day was a little better after that.
Friday when I was walking into the grocery store a woman stopped me and complimented me on my haircut. I smiled and thanked her. It made me smile since it is not really a haircut, although I did get it trimmed around the edges last month. It’s just me recovering from my baldness. Her compliment made me feel good. I mentioned this to Rick and he suggested that I should give out compliments as part of The Birthday Project. This is such a great idea.
I have never been very good at accepting compliments. I will not be doing that any more and plan to give out compliments on a daily basis.
Yes, I know that probably should be Taco Tuesday like it is at my niece, Nicole’s house. However, I will be serving her famous Taco’s a la Nicole. They involve smearing a soft  flour tortilla with guacamole and then wrapping it around a hard taco shell followed by all the usual taco fillings. Yummy! I know I should sign up to feed the missionaries more often, but the calendar is usually full, but this month I grabbed the calendar early so I’d be sure to get a date and include this as part of my birthday project. They’ll also leave with bags of the cookies I made yesterday.
If you are following The Birthday Project you may want to scroll back to see if I have added anything. I am trying to make up for some of the days that I lost over the holidays. Today I just added Day 30 and 32, although today is day 39. Now, I’m only 6 days behind…I can catch up!
Several years ago I ran into my second grade teacher in the Salt Lake Temple. I was amazed how much she looked the same after all those years and that I recognized her. A month or so ago I saw a woman in the Houston Temple who looked really familiar. I saw her name tag and realized that she was one of my high school art teachers. Today when we were on our way to the temple I realized that since it was Saturday she might be working again so I decided I was going to talk to her. I saw her as we were going into the session, but that wasn’t a good time to stop. I saw her again when we finished and stopped to talk for a minute. I told her that I had been one of her students and how grateful I am for the positive influence she was in my life. I told her that I remember her being young and very cool. So today instead of writing a thank-you note, which I have become very good at, I actually thanked someone in person! I smiled a lot on the drive home.
When Allyson was called to be the Young Women president in her ward in Perth she asked me what advice I’d give her. I thought for a minute and told her to love all of the young women unconditionally, to look for their strengths and the good things they do and then tell their parents about all the good qualities. Parent’s love to hear about the good things their children do in a world where so many are so quick to judge and criticize. I had so much fun last night with the primary girls. They we so darling and very polite. I loved having them here. I decided to write notes to each of their mothers to thank them for sharing their darling daughter’s with me.
It isn’t any secret that I love making cupcakes. Not so much the baking of them, the the filling, frosting and sprinkling of them. You can find evidence of this on my other blog, Vanilla Carrots. I decided that for one of my daily intentional acts of kindness I would invite the activity day girls from our primary over to decorate cupcakes with me. What I didn’t know when I extended the invitation was that there are 18 girls, all between the ages of 8 and 12. There were almost eighteen girls who came. I had baked well over 125 cupcakes and made oodles of frosting. I demonstrated three cupcakes and then they got busy. I am always amazed at the talent such young girls have for decorating cupcakes, they were so incredibly creative. We had a lot of fun. Here are some photos of the finished product.
Although they won’t be delivered until early March, I ordered Girl Scout cookies from every girl scout selling them in our ward. I have never ordered 33 boxes of girl scout cookies before.
P.S. We don’t plan to eat them ourselves, we are giving them to the missionaries.
Sometimes when I am folding laundry or ironing I like to watch television or a movie. Today I was disappointed that PBS didn’t have the last night’s episode of Downton Abbey up yet. Then I noticed the TED channel on Roku and decided to look for Kelly McGonigal talk to watch. She was recommended to me last month. I just watched her talk about rethinking the effect of stress on our bodies. She said that we have commonly believed that stress can shorten our life. She suggested that is the belief that stress can shorten our life is  what will shorten it. If we look at stress as our body’s efforts to prepare us to face a challenge it will strengthen us.
Near the end of her talk she said that caring for others can delete the negative affects of stress on our health. Caring creates resilience. How we think and choose to act can transform the effects of stress. Our actions determine what stress does to us. By looking at stress in a positive way it allows us to say, “I can trust myself to face life’s challenges.”
This was a very interesting idea. I especially like the idea that, “Caring creates Resilience.” This goes well with The Birthday Project. Doing things for others takes the focus off of me and the challenges in my life.
We have a new YW president in our ward and today I am going to take her a note of encouragement and one of my personal progress holders.