Happiness Is...

Last night was the first time since Monday that I got 6 uninterrupted hours of sleep. Elphie, for all her adorable quirks, is not a big fan of sleeping that long. She discovered the monsters under the covers (a.k.a. feet) on Tuesday, and it's pretty much been downhill from there. She's gotten a lot more rambunctious now that she knows her way around the house and is starting to relax around the big boys. So now she'll attack anything that moves, or that she thinks might move if she attacks it. This includes fingers, toes, furniture, walls, my beautiful shower curtain (thank God IKEA is so cheap!), and the occasional cat 10x her size!

So like I said, sleep has been fitful. We sleep when she sleeps.

Scott decided to take last night for the team, and managed to keep her occupied during her early-morning romp. The result? I had the best day I've had in years (ok, at least in the past 6 days!):

* After one snooze, I realized that Elphie was sleeping back-to-back with me. I rolled over and pet her and she purred that super-loud kitten purr that makes me forgive her for the scratches all over my hands and arms.

* Scott made scrapple and eggs for breakfast.

* God told me that he loves me**.

* Work was interesting and fairly busy, and I got to knock out a couple of very random projects and laugh at a cluster of really stupid people on my voicemail. (seriously - it was like someone hacked in and changed our outgoing message to something like "Thank you for calling The Restaurant. This is 'wildest dreams' week, so please leave your unrealistic request and we will definitely honor it." ha!)

* The Chef gave me a chicken sandwich,

* which I used to bribe Scott to come over and visit during my lunch break. He couldn't stay very long, but it's nice to spend a little time together awake.

** So yeah, about that one. As I was driving out of the apartment complex this morning, I saw two guys in bright green t-shirts talking to cars at the red light. So I locked my door. Generally, there's people who solicit donations for one charity or another (and sometimes a homeless person or two) on the other side of the street trying to get people coming out of Wal Mart and the gas station, but I've never seen them on our side of the street before and I was NOT happy.

Once I got to the light, I made a distinct effort to not make eye contact with either of the guys, who by this point I noticed had CHURCH in bright orange letters on their bright green t-shirts. I don't carry any cash, and I figured it would be better to just pretend I didn't know they were there than to turn down any donation request. One came around and knocked on my window and when I turned, I noticed a piece of paper in his hand. The words "FREE" and "ICE CREAM" stuck out to me. So I rolled down my window a crack and the guy (who, by the way, couldn't have been older than 16) handed it to me and said something along the lines of, "we're here giving away ice cream to remind you that God loves you. have a nice day." And he walked away. "Wow. Thank you!"

These guys were out handing out coupons for a free soft serve cone at the neighborhood ice cream place. Attached was a "business card" for their church that says "this is our simple way of saying that God loves you..." And you know what I did with my coupon? I brought it to work with me and told everyone that God loves me, and that I know it's true because he gave me free ice cream.

Ben Franklin may have believed "beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy," but I think it's ice cream!