My Credo...

For me, the key to happiness is learning to embrace the random, chance way things happen.

Maybe it's about living my life as a cliche. "Always look for the silver lining"

"If you get a lemon and make lemonade"...

We were six kids, growing up on a farm in Iowa. Our parents took ONE vacation without us (I have no idea where they went) and Aunt Glad came to our house to babysit. One evening, she asked if we'd like a bowl of ice cream before bed. Yahoo! We joyfully crowded around the table with our bowls in front of us -- but when she opened the box of ice cream, there was a large serving spoon frozen in place.

We all gasped...this was not right....our Mom would be yelling at somebody...who would've left the spoon in the box...??

When Aunt Glad calmly said, "Look -- there's the serving spoon. How convenient."

Here's the funny thing. My sister Ronda and I recently discussed this -- and it is shocking that we BOTH remember that moment. One insignificant little thing that happened 50 years ago.

Maybe we remember it because Mom wasn't very good at the lemonade thing. She had a picture in her head of the way things were going to go -- and if it didn't happen that way -- she had a bad day.

We all have a vision in our head...the way things are supposed to go. My example is Jack Dawson (Leo DiCaprio) in the Titanic movie. He WON a ticket to board the ship in a card game. The guy who lost that ticket believed it was his bad luck. Of course, Leo thought it was his LUCKY DAY...

But the unsinkable Titanic did the unthinkable. It sank.

So, at the end of the day -- who was the lucky guy?

When he was 19 years old, my son Elliott got fired from a job. It seemed like a very bad thing at the time. The next week, he got a job in a warehouse -- where he met Emily. So if that bad thing hadn't happened ??

Well, you get my point.

Here's the stool that sits next to my chair. I read it every single day. And it helps me.

As you can see, on a normal day -- my laptop sits on to pof the stool. Which is kind of a franken-puter right now. I needed to hook up a different keyboard...the wires are to my external hard drive -- so I DON'T LOSE ANYTHING...ugh...
Under the stool, I have reference books and how-to manuals for my printers, phones, etc...

I cannot tell you how many times I say these words..."Most days, you can't tell your good luck from your bad..."