Grief-stricken, self-indulgent, joy-filled fragments

If there were ever a week for Mrs. 4444s' Friday Fragments, this is it. My mind is bouncing in about 100 different directions. Not to worry, I will not share 100 fragments. I'll just give you the highlights.

This has been a week of grief. First, my Aunt Connie died two days ago. Then this morning, my Uncle Jim passed away. My mom's sister. My dad's brother. I hate cancer.

All the sadness in my week has me craving comfort food. For two days, I couldn't stop thinking about donuts and how much better donuts would make me feel. I was thinking about donut-induced happiness and said to myself "Donuts make the world go 'round." Then that made me laugh. Because that's the problem. Donuts DO make the world (or at least my rear end and belly) round.


We took Annie to New York City for her Fall Break last week. We had a great time. We went to see "How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying." Daniel Radcliffe was wonderful. There was no trace of Harry Potter in him on stage at all. They did a really good job of covering up his scar.

One of the coolest things we saw in the City was a cozy little waterfall, tucked between a couple of buildings in Midtown. We just happened upon it. It was a little oasis of peacefulness. The sound of the water even drowned out most of the sounds of the city. 

You might have already read about the awesome new shoes I bought in New York. Actually, I bought two pair -- one black and one green. They are the most comfortable shoes I've had on my feet in a long time. I walked to and from the subway in them, around Chinatown, in Times Square and in the airport. I "heart" these shoes. But the best part? Check out what's on the bottom. Those are frogs! We were meant for each other.

I had some age spot/warty thing frozen off my cheek the other day. Except it's still there, looking uglier than before. How long does it take for these things to fall off?

After four days of rain, the sun is finally shining here. What's sad is that I didn't even notice the absence of the rain until I saw a post on Facebook that said, "Hey, it's not raining!" Guess it's time I woke up and smelled the roses (or the hot apple cider).

Hug those you love today. Do something that will bring a smile to someone who needs it. Buy a pair of green shoes. Eat a donut. Find the joy.

Get creative and get free groceries!

This morning, I stumbled upon the Kroger 3rd Annual Design a Reusable Shopping Bag contest. The person who submits the winning design wins $1,000 from Kroger (or whichever store in the Kroger family is near you -- a list is available on the contest site). Smaller prizes are also awarded to the finalists and runners-up.

I had a ton of fun designing my entries using the backgrounds and clip art provided. There were some limitations -- no ability to center your text, for instance. But I was still able to come up with 5 designs that I liked well enough to submit.

If you design a bag and have a shopper's card at your local store, you can get a free reusable bag just for participating. If you don't have a shopper's card, you can just click "skip this step." (Confession: I don't have a Kroger card because I don't shop there. But I might go in and get one so I can get my free bag.) Plus, if you really like one of your designs, you can purchase it through Cafe Press, so even if it doesn't win, you can have your own one-of-a-kind, totally awesome, reusable bag.

Once you design your bag, you can assign it to a group. Knowing that I have readers who are all kinds of creative, I created a 4th Frog group that you can assign your bags to. There's no advantage to me, but it will allow us to see what each other is submitting. Plus, then we can vote for each others. One vote per design per person each day.

The winners aren't chosen by popular vote, however. That's left up to the judges. Based on last year's winners, I think that the edge goes to folks who do their design outside of the contest tools, then upload the design as a picture. (The pic at the top of this entry is one of the runners-up from last year.) So I might try to come up with a few that way, too. But the 5 I've already submitted I did completely using the design tools they gave us.

So get busy! Design your bag(s), assign them to the 4th Frog group, and leave a comment here letting us know that you have bags for us to look at.