One of the best lessons in life

I stumbled across ahappygirl.com and their blog every day in November challenge. I've neglected my blog lately, so I thought I'd see if I could take the time to do this for a few minutes each day. Today's topic is: one of the best lessons life has shown me

Focus on the positive, there is always positive to find. My second grader, Hope, has been a little dramatic lately especially with throwing around the "it's not fair" statements. Without sounding too cliche, I've been trying to tell her that things aren't fair, but if she always focuses on what she doesn't have, she will find things aren't fair. If she focuses on what she does have, she'll find things more than fair. For her, it's mostly monetary things like she's never been to Build a Bear Workshop and many of her friends have been several times. But we are so blessed to live Ina privileged area and a privileged country. Many people throughout the world live in a one room home and have never even heard of Build A Bear Workshop.

Today we had a little wake up call. After being out of the house for a couple hours this morning I returned home and discovered an electrical burning smell. I couldn't figure out the source, but upon walking around the house I discovered that the power was out in part of the house. Before I could check out the breaker box the power came back on and I put it in the back of my mine so I could run out and pick up the twins from preschool. I went into making lunch mode and got distracted again until Grace went in the garage and asked why it was filled with smoke. When we opened the garage it seemed to dissipate the smoke, and again searched the garage and outlets and electrical sources for evidence of burning to no avail. Part of my introverted nature did not want to call 9-1-1 and draw unnecessary attention without an actual fire. My mother-in-law, Dori, actually insisted that this indeed was a case where we call 9-1-1. So, with sirens blaring, a fire truck showed up ten minutes before school let out on our street to announce to everyone that something was amiss at our home. They were initially as baffled as we were, running down the same list of possibilities that we went through. Eventually they noticed that the smell was stronger by the washer and dryer, and they did find the cord from the dryer was a bit charred.

They went on their way, and we added a new dryer to our to do list. Unfortunately some other electrical thing is happening at our house because there seems to be no power in about a third of the house. All these things are pretty frustrating.

Ultimately, you've gotta find the positive. Our house did not burn down. Nobody was hurt. We didn't lose any valuables to fire. We have so much for which to be grateful. We may temporarily not have a dryer, but even having a washer and dryer is a much preferred method to clean clothes over the alternative. We are blessed. There is always positive to be found.

Last week we had a cold run through our house, but it was just a cold. Makes you grateful for how healthy we are most of the time. There is so much good to be found, you just have to open your eyes.