Even in Australia

As a child and as a teacher, my favorite children's book was Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judoth Voirst.  For those of you who've never read it, it's the tale of Alexander, the youngest of three boys and everything that goes wrong for him in one day.  I love the book because of its humorous take on something everyone of us has experienced.  Alexander wishes that he could go to Australia because in his mind, it would solve all of his problems.  At the end, his mother tucks him in and says, "Some days are like that, even in Australia."  I love that phrase the very best.  Because his mother doesn't promise him that everything will be okay, because no magic fairy waves a wand and solves everything, because it's just a real life truth.

In our house, "It's an Australia Day" is the way we describe that day where everything just went wrong.

And today way an Australia day.  A day where everything was a little harder than it should have been.  A day where the simplest things, like putting away clean dishes or putting a cake on a board became difficult tasks.  A day where the difficult tasks, like rebuilding our website, seemed near impossible.  A day where you stop and wish you could just run away to Australia.

But in every Australia day, there's that moment where you realize that it's just one day and that it will be okay and that tomorrow is another day.  For me, that moment came about a half hour into Yappie hour tonight, just as I was packing up and heading home and leaving Brandi to cover the store.  And in that moment, Bill and Nancy Gross and Miss Mollie, Steve and Toni Carter and Nic and Susan and her dog Libby all came in.  And somehow, the store filled up with warmth and light and everything became a little easier.  And in that moment, I remembered why it was that we open the store every morning and why we fight through the Australia days.  It's because our customers are so much more than customers - they're friends and family.  And because I can't imagine a job that is more rewarding than being blessed to be a part of such a great  community.  And I realized that I don't say thank you nearly enough - to all of you who make our dreams possible and to all of you who make our Australia days just a little easier.