1.  Tell us about a time you made someone’s life beautiful or someone made YOUR life beautiful.

Honestly, this is so small but any time someone recognizes the band on my shirt, life is great. We have a shared connection in that moment. On Sunday I was wearing a Judas Priest shirt and two dudes said, “Like your shirt” in passing. But the one who really made my day was the bagger. Publix is known for giving mentally challenged folks a job and he had limited speech. Instead of complimenting my shirt, he just said, “Painkiller!”, which is the name of the album. Not written on the shirt but he knew. And we had a moment.

2.  Will you take on the challenge and smile more often on June 15th?  Why not start now!!  Have you been blessed by a smile that changed your day?

I would love to but work has put the final nail in the coffin for me and smiling here is going to be rough. I will smile at the people I like but I can tell you this much: my boss isn’t even getting eye contact. The last time a smile changed my day was when the kids were babies. Living to see them crack a genuine smile at my face was… whoo boy, the greatest.

3.  Terri is a cancer survivor.  Cancer has touched most of us in one way or another.  When did someone reach out to you with an act of kindness or when did you last perform a random act of kindness for someone?

Last July, my husband passed out. I won’t go into details but we couldn’t wake him for long enough that I called an ambulance. After it left with him in it, there was a knock at the door. Our across the street neighbor stood there and asked if he could do anything. I stumbled through a ‘no’ and then blurted out that it had never happened before and – he cut me off to say, “I don’t need details but know that we’re here to help with anything.” And just that act was exactly the sortof kindness I want from people. No questions but the offer of help from near strangers. We’d only been in the house a couple months!

4.  Terri admits that this turned out to be not what she thought it would be.  Our country has come a long way in recognizing that people are people and our differences are what makes life beautiful, but we still have a long way to go, unfortunately.  Your thoughts?

Boy this is a pretty ambiguous one huh? I assume we’re talking about gay marriage, etc. Honestly, I do believe that love is love. I am sure that if I were to swing that way I’d want people to recognize that I fell in love with someone despite what “tradition” tells us.

I do believe that being different IS what makes this life – and country – great. I’m sorry that people – on both sides – keep fighting this. The liberals want to be LGBTQetc and all but if someone is a Republican, they think it’s ok to throw milkshakes at them. To me, that’s completely hypocritical. You want the freedom to believe what you believe; let others do the same.

5.  Had to lighten it up a bit.  Terri is a total klutz in the kitchen.  Tell us about something klutzy that happened in your kitchen… by you or another!  Can you laugh about it now?

LOL I have a good one. For Ash’s, maybe, 26th or 27th birthday, I made him a chocolate cake. I had it on a round platter and was turning it as I spread the icing on. As I turned, I allowed it to fall right to the ground. I was completely distraught about it; what a blunder!

6.  Share something about your week so far, if you would.

I’m trying to be positive you guys, I really am. I asked my boss if I could go back to the 8-4:30 schedule, half hour lunches. By law, we are only required to take 30 minutes. She said no, claiming it was unfair of me to even ask her. WOW! I asked her to reconsider; I poured my heart out to her about how it would drastically improve my life and all the reasons I felt I needed it. And she still said no. So it’s on; war, bitch. I’m ignoring her entirely unless it’s about work and even then it will be cold and clinical. I’m done with managers who want to treat everyone the same, like machines. She won’t win. I won’t let her.