It probably seemed trivial to most people, but it mattered to Tracey.

She wasn't sure why it mattered

so much to her, but she understood deep within her being that it mattered to her. So for the 365th
day in a row, Tracey sat down to eat pancakes for breakfast.

1. All he wanted was a candy bar. It didn't seem like a difficult request to comprehend, but the
clerk remained frozen and didn't seem to want to honor the request. It might have had
something to do with the gun pointed at his face.

2. He sat across from her trying to imagine it was the first time. It wasn't. Had it been a
hundred? It quite possibly could have been. Two hundred? Probably not. His mind wandered
until he caught himself and again tried to imagine it was the first time.

3. Debbie put her hand into the hole, sliding her hand down as far as her arm could reach. She
wiggled her fingers hoping to touch something, but all she felt was air. She shifted the
weight of her body to try and reach an inch or two more down the hole. Her fingers still
touched nothing but air.

4. She never liked cleaning the sink. It was beyond her comprehension how it got so dirty so
quickly. It seemed that she was forced to clean it every other day. Even when she was extra
careful to keep things clean and orderly, it still ended up looking like a mess in a couple of
days. What she didn't know was there was a tiny creature living in it that didn't like things
neat.

5. Sometimes that's just the way it has to be. Sure, there were probably other options, but he
didn't let them enter his mind. It was done and that was that. It was just the way it had to be.

6. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense. The man walking down the street in a banana suit. The
llama standing in the middle of the road. The fairies dancing in front of the car window. The
fact that all of this was actually happening and wasn't a dream.

7. Although Scott said it didn't matter to him, he knew deep inside that it did. They had been
friends as long as he could remember and not once had he had to protest that something Joe
apologized for doing didn't really matter. Scott stuck to his lie and insisted again and again
that everything was fine as Joe continued to apologize. Scott already knew that despite his
words accepting the apologies that their friendship would never be the same.

8. Devon couldn't figure out the color of her eyes. He initially would have guessed that they
were green, but the more he looked at them he almost wanted to say they were a golden
yellow. Then there were the flashes of red and orange that seemed to be streaked throughout
them. It was almost as if her eyes were made of opal with the sun constantly glinting off of
them and bringing out more color. They were definitely the most unusual pair of eyes he'd
ever seen.
9. She's asked the question so many times that she barely listened to the answers anymore. The
answers were always the same. Well, not exactly the same, but the same in a general sense.
A more accurate description was the answers never surprised her. So, she asked for the
10,000th time, "What's your favorite animal?" But this time was different. When she heard
the young boy's answer, she wondered if she had heard him correctly.

10.Samantha wanted to be famous. The problem was that she had never considered all the
downsides to actually being famous. Had she taken the time to objectively consider these
downsides, she would have never agreed to publically sing that first song.

11.The words hadn't flowed from his fingers for the past few weeks. He never imagined he'd
find himself with writer's block, but here he sat with a blank screen in front of him. That
blank screen taunting him day after day had started to play with his mind. He didn't
understand why he couldn't even type a single word, just one to begin the process and build
from there. And yet, he already knew that the eight hours he was prepared to sit in front of
his computer today would end with the screen remaining blank.

12.They needed to find a place to eat. The kids were beginning to get grumpy in the back seat
and if they didn't find them food soon, it was just a matter of time before they were faced
with a complete meltdown. Even knowing this, the solution wasn't easy. Everyone in the car
had a different opinion on where the best place to eat would be with nobody agreeing with
the suggestions of the others. It seemed to be an impossible no-win situation where not
everyone would be happy no matter where they decided to eat which in itself would lead to a
meltdown. Yet a decision needed to be made and it needed to be made quickly.

13.There weren't supposed to be dragons flying in the sky. First and foremost, dragons didn't
exist. They were mythical creatures from fantasy books like unicorns. This was something
that Pete knew in his heart to be true so he was having a difficult time acknowledging that
there were actually fire-breathing dragons flying in the sky above him.

14.He swung back the fishing pole and cast the line which ell 25 feet away into the river. The
lure landed in the perfect spot and he was sure he would soon get a bite. He never expected
that the bite would come from behind in the form of a bear.

15.It was going to rain. The weather forecast didn't say that, but the steel plate in his hip did.
He had learned over the years to trust his hip over the weatherman. It was going to rain, so
he better get outside and prepare.

16.MaryLou wore the tiara with pride. There was something that made doing anything she
didn't really want to do a bit easier when she wore it. She really didn't care what those
staring through the window were thinking as she vacuumed her apartment.
17.There were two things that were important to Tracey. The first was her dog. Anyone that had
ever met Tracey knew how much she loved her dog. Most would say that she treated it as
her child. The dog went everywhere with her and it had been her best friend for the past five
years. The second thing that was important to Tracey, however, would be a lot more
surprising to most people.

18.Terrance knew that sometimes it was simply best to stay out of it. He kept repeating this to
himself as he watched the scene unfold. He knew that nothing good would come of him
getting involved. It was far better for him to stay on the sidelines and observe. He kept
yelling this to himself inside his head as he walked over to the couple and punched the man
in the face.

19.Housework could be everyone’s work, not just “women’s work”. Why do women enable
men to act oblivious to cleaning, grocery shopping, pet feeding, etc? Somehow when men
live alone they figure out how to do all of those things all on their own. My friend’s husband
claimed he didn’t know that sheets should be washed more than once a season. He said he
didn’t know one had to clean toilets. He assumed that since you flush toilets they clean
themselves. She tried to get him to help but he did an awful job so she let him off the hook.
Wouldn’t it be better if she spent the time and energy to get him to do it right instead of
letting him claim he is “just bad at it”. My sons were raised to clean toilets and change their
own sheets. Hopefully, in their future homes, the housework will be equally divided.

20.The blinking light caught her attention. She thought about it a bit and couldn't remember
ever noticing it before. That was strange since it was obvious the flashing light had been
there for years. Now she wondered how she missed it for that amount of time and what other
things in her small town she had failed to notice.

21.The clowns had taken over. And yes, they were literally clowns. Over 100 had appeared out
of a small VW bug that had been driven up to the bank. Now they were all inside and had
taken it over.

22.He had done everything right. There had been no mistakes throughout the entire process. It
had been perfection and he knew it without a doubt, but the results still stared back at him
with the fact that he had lost.

23.It had been her dream for years but Dana had failed to take any action toward making it
come true. There had always been a good excuse to delay or prioritize another project. As
she woke, she realized she was once again at a crossroads. Would it be another excuse or
would she finally find the courage to pursue her dream? Dana rose and took her first step.

24.What have you noticed today? I noticed that if you outline the eyes, nose, and mouth on
your face with your finger, you make an "I" which makes perfect sense, but is something I
never noticed before. What have you noticed today?
25.She considered the birds to be her friends. She'd put out food for them each morning and
then she'd watch as they came to the feeders to gorge themselves for the day. She wondered
what they would do if something ever happened to her. Would they miss the meals she
provided if she failed to put out the food one morning?

26.Another option you have is choosing the number of syllables in the words you speak. You
probably have never considered this option before, but you have it every time you open your
mouth and speak. You make so many choices like this that you never even think about, but
you have the choice with each one. What are you going to do with this knowledge?

27.No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't give her a good explanation about what had
happened. It didn't even really make sense to him. All he knew was that he froze at the
moment and no matter how hard he tried to react, nothing in his body allowed him to move.
It was as if he had instantly become a statue and although he could see what was taking
place, he couldn't move to intervene. He knew that wasn't a satisfactory explanation even
though it was the truth.

28.She was aware that things could go wrong. In fact, she had trained her entire life in
anticipation that things would go wrong one day. She had quiet confidence as she started to
see that this was the day that all her training would be worthwhile and useful. At this point,
she had no idea just how wrong everything would go that day.

29.The water rush down the wash and into the slot canyon below. Two hikers had started the
day to sunny weather without a cloud in the sky, but they hadn't thought to check the
weather north of the canyon. Huge thunderstorms had brought a deluge o rain and produced
flash floods heading their way. The two hikers had no idea what was coming.

30.She needed glasses. It wasn't that she couldn't see without them, but what she could see with
them. When she wore glasses, her eyes focused so deeply that she could see not only the
physical but also beyond. It was like a superpower. But she needed glasses.

31.The coin hovered in the air, spinning over and over again. It reached its peak and began to
descend. Both boys were pleading with it to land a certain way but the coin had already
made up its mind on what it was going to do.

32.Rhonda prided herself on always taking the path less traveled. She'd decided to do this at an
early age and had continued to do so throughout her entire life. It was a point of pride and
she would explain to anyone who would listen that doing so was something that she'd made
great efforts to always do. She'd never questioned this decision until her five-year-old niece
asked her, "So, is this why your life has been so difficult?" and Rhonda didn't have an
answer for her.
33.Pink ponies and purple giraffes roamed the field. Cotton candy grew from the ground as a
chocolate river meandered off to the side. What looked like stones in the pasture were
actually rock candy. Everything in her dream seemed to be perfect except for the fact that
she had no mouth.

34.It had become a far too common an event in her life. She has specifically placed the key to
the box in a special place so that she wouldn't lose it and know exactly where it was when
the key was needed. Now that she needed to open the box, she had absolutely no idea where
that special spot she placed the key might be.

35.It really shouldn't have mattered to Betty. That's what she kept trying to convince herself
even if she knew it mattered to Betty more than practically anything else. Why was she
trying to convince herself otherwise? As she stepped forward to knock on Betty's door, she
still didn't have a convincing answer to this question that she'd been asking herself for more
than two years now.

36.The light blinded him. It was dark and he thought he was the only one in the area, but the
light shining in his eyes proved him wrong. It came from about 100 feet away and was
shining so directly into his eyes he couldn't make out anything about the person holding the
light. There was only one thing to do in this situation. He reached into his pocket and pulled
out a flashlight of his own that was much stronger than the one currently blinding him. He
turned it on and pointed it into the stranger's eyes.

37.Life isn't always beautiful. That was a lesson that Dan was learning. He also realized that
life wasn't easy. This had come as a shock since he had lived a charmed life. He hated that
this was the truth and he struggled to be happy knowing that his assumptions weren't correct.
He wouldn't realize until much later in life that the difficult obstacles he was facing that
were taking away the beauty in his life at this moment would ultimately make his life much
more beautiful. All he knew was that at this moment was that life isn't always beautiful.

38.Twenty-five stars were neatly placed on the piece of paper. There was room for five more
stars but they would be difficult ones to earn. It had taken years to earn the first twenty-five,
and they were considered the "easy" ones.

39.They decided to find the end of the rainbow. While they hoped they would find a pot of
gold, neither of them truly believed that the mythical pot would actually be there. Nor did
they believe they could actually find the end of the rainbow. Still, it seemed like a fun
activity for the day, and pictures of them chasing rainbows would look great on their
Instagram accounts. They would have never believed they would actually find the end of a
rainbow, and when they did, what they actually found there.
40.The chair sat in the corner where it had been for over 25 years. The only difference was
there was someone actually sitting in it. How long had it been since someone had done that?
Ten years or more he imagined. Yet there was no denying the presence in the chair now.

41.There was something in the tree. It was difficult to tell from the ground, but Rachael could
see movement. She squinted her eyes and peered in the direction of the movement, trying to
decipher exactly what she had spied. The more she peered, however, the more she thought it
might be a figment of her imagination. Nothing seemed to move until the moment she began
to take her eyes off the tree. Then in the corner of her eye, she would see the movement
again and begin the process of staring again.

42.She looked at her little girl who was about to become a teen. She tried to think back to when
the girl had been younger but failed to pinpoint the exact moment when she had become a
little too big to pick up and carry. It hit her all at once. She was no longer a little girl and she
stood there speechless with fear, sadness, and pride all running through her at the same time.

43.There was a time in his life when her rudeness would have set him over the edge. He would
have raised his voice and demanded to speak to the manager. That was no longer the case.
He barely reacted at all, letting the rudeness melt away without saying a word back to her.
He had been around long enough to know where rudeness came from and how unhappy the
person must be to act in that way. All he could do was feel pity and be happy that he didn't
feel the way she did to lash out like that.

44.Since they are still preserved in the rocks for us to see, they must have been formed quite
recently, that is, geologically speaking. What can explain these striations and their common
orientation? Did you ever hear about the Great Ice Age or the Pleistocene Epoch? Less than
one million years ago, in fact, some 12,000 years ago, an ice sheet many thousands of feet
thick rode over Burke Mountain in a southeastward direction. The many boulders frozen to
the underside of the ice sheet tended to scratch the rocks over which they rode. The
scratches or striations seen in the park rocks were caused by these attached boulders. The ice
sheet also plucked and rounded Burke Mountain into the shape it possesses today.

45.She counted. One. She could hear the steps coming closer. Two. Puffs of breath could be
seen coming from his mouth. Three. He stopped beside her. Four. She pulled the trigger of
the gun.

46.She sat deep in thought. The next word that came out o her mouth would likely be the most
important word of her life. It had to be exact with no possibility of being misinterpreted. She
was ready. She looked deeply into his eyes and said, "Octopus."

47.It was supposed to be a dream vacation. They had planned it over a year in advance so that it
would be perfect in every way. It had been what they had been looking forward to through
all the turmoil and negativity around them. It had been the light at the end of both their
 tunnels. Now that the dream vacation was only a week away, the virus had stopped all air
travel.

48.He read about a hike called the incline in the guidebook. It said it was a strenuous hike and
to bring plenty of water. “A beautiful hike to the clouds” described one review. “Not for the
faint-hearted,” said another. “Not too bad of a workout”, bragged a third review. I thought
I’d hike it when I fly in from Maryland on my day off from the senior citizen's wellness
conference. I hiked 2 miles a day around the neighborhood so I could handle a 1.1-mile hike.
What a foolish mistake that was for a 70-year-old low-lander.

49.Her breath exited her mouth in big puffs as if she were smoking a cigarette. The morning
dew had made her clothes damp and she shivered from the chill in the air. There was only
one thing that could get her up and out this early in the morning.