I am sure that those of you who have been reading my blog from the beginning have noticed the many changes I have made.  I am always looking at other blogs, getting new ideas, and learning how to make my blog better.

Today I have made more changes.  In an effort to stream line things for those people who get the blog on a feed, I have combined Treasure and Random Thoughts into Daily.  It also makes it easier for me, instead of having to fill up two post pages, now I only have to worry about filling up just one.  Most likely the name will of this section will change again, when I think of something better.

Does your family have a favorite recipe that is served at every family get together?  Has it become sort of a comfort food that you associate with good memories?  My family does.  We all it Party Potatoes.

It is a mess of baked cheesy hash browns, with a few other things thrown in. It is absolutely wonderful!

I have read some where before that smells can trigger memories.  I am convinced of that now.  Last night, as a treat for my family, I fixed Party Potatoes.  When they were done I took the out of the oven, and the Party Potato smell went all through my house.  My daughter came up beside me and said the house smelled liked Thanksgiving.

I really enjoyed being able to give her a smell and food that made her have a good memory.  It is something I will treasure.

I managed to go to the grocery store yesterday afternoon without encountering too much anxiety.  Lately, I have been going to the store by myself and I am always worrying that even with my list I will forget something, and I always do end up forgetting something.  Yesterday, I took Anna with me.  The weather was bad, and I thought it would be good to have her help with the groceries.  Initially, she did not want to go, but I think after we got there she was fine with it.  I found that having her there, made for a much less stressful shopping experience.  I gave her a list of things that I needed, but they also happened to be things I always forget.  That meant that worry went away.  It was a little crowded when we got there, but by the time we got to the registers it was not bad anymore.  Less crowds at the register means less anxiety for me.  Less anxiety means a more pleasant shopping experience, and I am in a better mood when I finish shopping.  I made sure to tell Anna how beneficial she was to me.

After a couple of days of texting back and forth with my son, I have now had a couple of days of not hearing from him.  This makes me a little sad. I enjoyed talking to him so much, after so long of not hearing from him, that I allowed the last couple of days of not hearing from him to get to me.  I will try getting a hold of him one more time, and then I will just leave him alone.  I learned a lesson from before.  If he does not text or call me back after a couple of days, it usually means he does not want to talk to me.  If that is the case, I will need to work very hard to keep it from bothering me and if I let it bother me, I run the risk of having a bad mental health day.