Laugh About It

In life things won't always go as planned, things are going to get tough and disasters are going to happen. The best thing that you can do isn't to get upset or angry, or even quiet and intense while you figure out a new strategy. It's to learn to laugh about it. (Warning: If the disaster comes in the form of someone telling you about their problems you probably don't want to laugh at them. It's generally considered a bad idea.)

This week I went to cook dinner for my family and there was a crock pot on the back of the stove. Looking at it I wondered if it were too close to the burner that I needed to use but after trying to move it back discovered that it wasn't going to move any further. Without thinking I pulled the pan forward, inadvertently sending the heat out the back, towards the controls on the crock pot. Pretty soon I smelled something weird and went to check... there is now some missing plastic on the bottom of the control panel of the crock pot. Oops!
Thankfully instead of freaking out or getting upset I just started laughing. "Cooking casualty!" I labeled it before finishing dinner and moving on.

Well I moved on for two days until Thursday came along and once again I was cooking dinner when I decided to make some gravy. I decided to make the gravy a different way so I got out the plastic container, poured the juice straight from the oven into it and added some flower before putting on the lid. Little did I know that this container is designed for the lid not to seal tight when you put hot liquids inside because it will melt the container and burn you. Or, if you're like me, you put the lid on, put one finger on top of it and start to shake it to mix up the gravy when the lid comes off and ridiculously hot liquid goes everywhere! (Including my hand! Which is healing very well by the way.)
Thankfully God kept me calm once again and I was able to laugh about it instead of getting upset. With some help from my family, dinner was finished, my hand was doctored and the second cooking casualty of the week was laughed over as as we sat down to eat.

So hopefully you're catastrophes this week have been a little less destructive and painful then mine but just remember whatever comes your way, before you get upset, take a step back and learn to laugh about it instead.

Drama, Drama, Drama

I always hear people complain about how much drama is created by Facebook, blogs, email, and the media. It's constant, someone posts something on Facebook that offends someone else and soon your friends are split in half because everyone takes sides, it's not a pretty sight. So I created a solution...

If you want to cut drama completely out of your life you....

Delete your Facebook account, take down your blog, cancel your email, turn off your phone, throw out the T.V., unhook the landline, shut down internet access and move to a cabin in the woods to grow your own food and never speak to anyone again.

Sounds like a great plan right? Very peaceful, lots of time to communicate with the Lord, enjoy nature and have no one tell you what to do.

Here's the problem, in three days I'd be talking to myself, within the first week I'd be arguing with myself and before the end of the month I'd be creating my own drama with myself!

"Ow I stubbed my toe!"
"Well what'd you do that for?"
"Because it sounded like fun!"
"Well was it?"
"No, it hurt!"
"Then maybe you shouldn't do it anymore."
"Well I didn't try to do it in the first place!"
"Well you don't have to get mad at me about it!"
"Then stop yelling at me!"
"But we're the same person, so aren't we really yelling at ourself?"
"I don't like this anymore, I'm moving back to town."

The fact is that drama comes from people, not the internet or television, you can choose to have people in your life that are less dramatic but as long as you're still talking to people (which by the way God insists that you love people as He does so good luck getting out of that!) there's going to be drama. It's just the way of the world.

All that to say, you don't have to have Facebook or email or anything else, sometimes the people on there do create more drama but it won't stop just because you get rid of those things.

Since I Haven't Mentioned It...

Since I haven't mentioned it in a while let's talk about my writing career. I don't know if you can call it a career or not but it's heading that direction, and it's the reason I started this blog oh so long ago. Any more I don't post about it very often because there are so many other things in my life that I like to share with all of you but for those of you who are curious here's an update.

As some of you know I wrote a series of five books (not published yet) titled "The Tisdale Chronicles". Well a few years ago through some very useful but not so fun critiques and conversation I learned there were some serious flaws in the manuscripts in the way of timeline issues and character development problems, parts that dragged and parts that just got skipped over. So began the very long, dreaded journey of re-writes. 

After a hard fought battle the first manuscript has been completed and is now in the editing stages. YAY!!!!!!

However after that mountaintop victory came a much steeper valley as I dug into the second manuscript. At first I started writing, stopped, realized the whole thing was a mess and had to scrap 70 some pages. Ahhhhhh! So then began the process of creating a new plot and timeline withing the existing story structure. Phew! That wasn't easy! Then I went back to writing, stopped again and realized I'd lost sight of the characters motivations. Throw in some procrastination, (which the holidays didn't help) and I finally got that part done. Now it's back to the timeline and then off to write another day.

So there's the update for those of you who are interested. 

As always friends, thanks for your encouragement and support, I can't wait till I get to announce that the books are finally available. We're getting closer every day!

Snakes

I hate snakes. Hate, hate, hate them. Seriously, I was walking across a bridge and almost stepped on a garter snake (a big one, not poisonous but still!) and I considered jumping off the bridge.

So the other day I walk into the kitchen and there's a plastic snake on the counter... Now I know it's fake, it doesn't even look real but it's still there and I need to make dinner so there's no way that thing and I are going to be in there at the same time while I cook. It's not happening!
I can't just pick it up though, it goes against like every self-defense instinct I have, even if it is fake! So instead I grab a dish rag and use that to carefully pick up the tail and hold it as far away from me as possible and go into the office to throw it onto my mom's computer tower.
I figure it's her kitchen so she can deal with the snake someone left there!

Back in the kitchen I go to make dinner. Once it's ready Dad and I decide that since, it's just the two of us that night, we'll eat in the office. I get in there and go to sit down at Mom's desk and realize that stupid snake is there!
Well this is just not happening! So this time I find some cardstock to scoop up the plastic snake and throw it on Dad's desk.

Now someone tell me, how come the two times this snake needs moved, I'm the only one in the room?! I think they planned it just to torment me! =)




Just so you all know, later when I told this story to my family over the holidays my Mom started laughing. She said "I found it and I set in on the counter because you were out of town. I put it there so I'd remember to move it somewhere because I didn't want you to come across it and have to deal with it and then I forgot!"
Thanks for trying to keep me from being terrified Mom, I appreciate the thought. =)